A monumental bronze cast of the classical sculpture *Laocoön and his Sons*, one of only four life-size period bronzes, is being offered at Sotheby’s London as a prelude to its Old Masters evening sale on July 1, with an estimate of £2 million to £3 million ($2.6 million to $3.9 million). The bronze was cast in 1817 by French Neoclassical master Auguste-Jean Marie Carbonneaux using pioneering sand-mold technique, commissioned by British collector George Watson-Taylor after Napoleon’s forces took a plaster mold from the original marble in the Louvre. The work has a storied provenance, passing through the hands of William Beckford and the Duke of Hamilton, and has not appeared at auction in 150 years.
This sale matters because it offers a rare opportunity to acquire a historically significant bronze that connects Renaissance admiration for antiquity, Napoleonic plunder, and the technical evolution of bronze casting. The Laocoön group has been an icon of Western art since its discovery in 1506, praised by Michelangelo and later coveted by Napoleon. The auction will test the market for such monumental classical bronzes, which carry immense art-historical weight but are seldom traded publicly. The piece also illuminates the shifting fortunes of collectors and the enduring allure of ancient masterpieces in the modern art market.