About This Artwork

François Joseph Bosio
French, 1768-1845

Hyacinth Awaiting His Turn to Throw the Discus, c. 1824

Bronze
44.5 x 124.5 cm (17 1/2 x 15 11/16 in.)
Inscription: "f. bosio" on edge of base
Through prior acquisitions of the George F. Harding Collection; Major Acquisitions Fund, 1991.117

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Publication History

For information about the feminized male nude in the neoclassical tradition, see:
Abigail Solomon-Godeau, "The Body Politics of Homosociality," in Male Trouble: A Crisis in Representation (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1997), 43-97.

“Revue des ventes: Collection de Mme. la baronne Roger de Sivry,” Gazette de l’hôtel Drouot 13, 84–85 (March 24 and 25, 1904).

L. Barbarin, Étude sur Bosio: Sa vie et son oeuvre (Imprimerie de Monaco, 1910), pp. 109–10.

Gérard Hubert, Les Sculpteurs italiens en France sous la Révolution, L’Empire et la Restauration, 1790–1830 (Paris: Éditions E. de Boccard, 1964), p. 109, no. 1.

Stanislas Lami, Dictionaire des sculpteurs de l’école française au dix-neuvième siècle 1, reprint (Nendeln, Liechtenstein: Kraus, 1970), p. 155.

“Principales acquisitions des musées en 1991,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 119 (March 1992), p. 71, fig. 242.

Ian Wardropper, “Collecting European Sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago,” Apollo 154, 475 (September 2001), pp. 9–10, 12 n. 13, fig. 14.

Ownership History

Madame G., Paris, before 1868; sold, her estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, July 14, 1868, lot 64 [see Hubert, p. 109]. Charles (?) Bardon, Paris, before 1874; offered for sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, April 9, 1874, lot 1, as “Narcisse.” Baron Roger de Sivry, Paris, before 1903; by descent to his widow, Baronness Roger de Sivry, Paris; sold, her estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, March 22–23, 1904, lot 181. Private collection, France [according to letter from Anthony Roth to Ian Wardropper, November 21, 1990, in curatorial file]. Anthony Roth Fine Art, London, by 1990; sold to the Art Institute, 1991.