The Dioscuri of the Quirinale in Rome

The monumental sculptures of ancient Rome were of interest throughout Europe, but not everyone could travel to see them. Enterprising publishers catered to the thirst for knowledge of such wonders by publishing images of them for wide circulation. The present work depicts a famous pair of sculptures popularly known as The Horse Tamers. When this print was published, the two broken and partially reconstructed sculptures were attributed to the Greek sculptors Praxiteles (395-330 BCE) and Phidias (480-430 BCE), but they are now generally considered to be copies made in the 400s CE based on lost Greek originals. Since antiquity, they have stood on the Quirinal Hill, near the site of the Baths of Constantine.