In 1496, Michelangelo carved a marble group of Eros, sleeping on the lion skin of Hercules.
It was provided by a badly mutilated marble group that had been removed from a monument still in Rome.
There are also versions of the circa-second century B.C. Laocoon, a marble group representing the Trojan priest and his two sons being crushed by snakes.
In the catalog, Mr. Heintz recognizes in the Neumann sculpture a marble group of three satyrs fighting a serpent, described in a letter which was written by the banker Nofri Tornabuoni on Jan.
The 19th-century "plaster cast," elevated to the more exalted status of "a marble group, Roman Imperial (circa first century A.D)." was likewise consigned to Sotheby's for the sale scheduled on June 11.
At the Sotheby's New York sale of Nov. 8, a marble group of Leda holding the Greek god Zeus in the form of a swan was expected to go for $2 to $3 million, plus the sale charge.
Barnard exhibited six sculptures at the 1894 Paris Salon du Champs de Mars, including the well-known marble group (commissioned by Clark) The Struggle of the Two Natures in Man (1894), a depiction of two male nudes, which created a sensation.
A marble group of "Daphnis and Chloe," 140 centimeters high, or about 56 inches, with the name of Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux and the date 1874 carved on the base, catches the eye from 10 meters away on the stand of the London dealer Daniel Katz.
In the Sotheby's July sale, a marble group of "The Three Graces Crowning Venus" carved by Antonio Frilli in the late 19th century brought £109,250, less than hoped for, but a stupendous price for an interpretation of a model conceived decades earlier by Antonio Canova.
The game is played with 49 glass or ceramic marbles grouped together on a 2m-diameter concrete cylinder raised 7cm off the ground and covered in sand.
