A POLYCHROME MARBLE BUST OF A ROMAN PATRICIAN WOMAN AFTER THE ANTIQUE A 17th century (or earlier) torso, with an 19th century Giallo Antico head 22cm high Provenance: The Simon Neal Collection The taste for coloured marbles used by the ancients was revived in Italy during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Around this time, sculptors began to reuse ancient stones and marble fragments, known as 'spolia', for their new works. They often re-carved ancient stones or made later additions to them, which is probably the case with this example, as the head (carved from Giallo Antico) is modelled in a later 18th century style, whilst the torso is decidedly earlier, either 17th century or perhaps ancient. Sculptors and their patrons who engaged in the practice of re-using ancient 'spolia', did so because of the social cache these fragments offered, through their intractable associations with Roman imperial power, as much as it may have been for the love of a particular stone's aesthetic beauty.