Dear Readers,
This week, we look not at an empire or event, but at a sculpture; solid, silent, and yet full of motion: Wild Boar (1925), carved in marble by Italian sculptor Pietro Bazzanti. With lifelike detail and mythic resonance, this piece embodies centuries of artistic tradition, Florentine identity, and the symbolic strength of an untamed creature.
A Beast with a Pedigree
Bazzanti’s Wild Boar is not an isolated creation, it is a refined replica of a much older and deeply beloved figure: Il Porcellino, the bronze fountain sculpture found near the Mercato Nuovo in Florence. That boar, in turn, was a 17th-century copy of a Roman marble boar, which itself likely referenced Hellenistic hunting motifs. The lineage is long, and the reverence is real.
The wild boar represents both the danger and dignity of nature. In Florence, the porcellino is more than a mascot: it’s a folk tradition. Visitors rub its snout for good luck and drop coins into its basin in the hope of returning to the city one day. In marble, Bazzanti captures not just the animal, but this aura of myth and ritual.
Craft and Classicism
Pietro Bazzanti (active late 19th to early 20th century) belonged to a long family line of master sculptors in Florence. The Bazzanti studio, founded in the early 19th century, became famous for its museum-quality reproductions of classical and Renaissance works. With a sharp chisel and a sharper eye, Pietro continued this legacy, adapting traditional forms for a modern audience eager for echoes of antiquity.
The Wild Boar (1925), in luminous marble and measuring 112 cm, is both faithful and fresh. It reflects a time when European art balanced between nostalgia for the past and the tensions of a rapidly modernizing world. Bazzanti’s animal is no mere copy, it’s a love letter to continuity, carved with reverence, precision, and life.
An Icon with Enduring Appeal
Today, Bazzanti’s Wild Boar can be seen not only as a masterwork of form but also as a symbol of something enduring: the stubborn, rooted identity of place, and the way animals in art speak to something primal in us. In a world of movement and fragmentation, the wild boar stands still, firm-hoofed and gleaming, the ancient made modern again.
As of now, the sculpture is on display in the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia located in Halifax!
Until next time, remember to embrace the lessons of history, but never get caught up in its cobwebs.
Warm regards,
Hugh
