Marsyas

Pierre Legros was trained by his father and namesake in Paris, but was a student at the French Academy in Rome from 1690 to 1695, and was to remain there for the rest of his career. By 1700, he was the most successful and admired sculptor in Rome, above all for his supremely accomplished large-scale religious works. Among the most notable were the riot of polychrome marbles of his ‘Blessed Stanislas Kostka’ in Sant’Andrea al Quirinale, and his ‘Saint Bartholomew’ and ‘Saint Thomas’ for the series of the twelve apostles that adorn the nave of the basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano.
In his ‘Some Observations made in Travelling through France, Italy, &c’ of 1730, Edward Wright described the series as ‘of the present age, but by the best masters in it, as Mons. Le Grot [sic], Camillo Rusconi &c’, a remark whose inherent interest is considerably increased because of the provenance of the present bronze: Wright was acquainted with Thomas Parker, 1st Earl of Macclesfield, whom he accompanied on his travels through Italy and who acquired the work in 1723. It was one of twelve bronzes presumably intended for his castle in Oxfordshire, which he bought from the Scottish artists John Smilbert, who had just returned from a four-year long sojourn in Italy several months earlier.
The model of this ‘Marsyas’ is known in other versions in a variety of materials, including an exceptionally fine and presumably autograph marble example of almost the same size (it measures 69 cm in height with its base) in the collection of the Earl of Plymouth at Oakley Park. In Greek mythology, Marsyas was a satyr who unwisely challenged Apollo to a music-making contest, which was judged by Midas. His punishment for losing was to be flayed alive, which explains his tortured writhing and open-mouthed scream in anticipation of his imminent fate, and also the inclusion of his pan-pipes at his feet.