Seven years after Vincenzo Gemito’s death in 1929, his biographer, Ottavio Morisani, became the first to recount that the sculptor’s bronze Philosopher was conceived in late 1882/ early 1883 as a proof by the artist that there was someone alive capable of modelling with equal vigour a bust in the style of the ancient Roman bronze Seneca.

Gemito came to know the Seneca from his frequent visits to the Museo Archaeologico Nazionale, Naples, and it was one of many works that he and his artist friends tirelessly studied in their early careers. The result of the exercise that Morisani referred to - which is the bronze today in the Museo Nazionale e Real Bosco di Capodimonte, Naples - was so successful that, with it, Gemito won a gold medal for sculpture at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900. Yet, despite the high acclaim it received, Gemito abandoned the composition until 1919.

The version presented here - cast just one year later – and on the international market for the very first time, is arguably the finest known to have ever appeared on the market, as well as the most unique: unlike the innumerable other versions, this one is signed and dated ‘1920’ and is presented on a pink granite herm as well as its original ebonised wood pedestal rather than an integral bronze socle.