Pair Of Arab-norman Lions In Stone. Southern Italy XIII Century.

Pair of Arab-Norman lions carved in stone. Spectacular exterior lions sculpted by an Arab or Persian artist at the court of Frederick II. A sculptor who ideally copies an image of a lion without ever having seen a lion, interpreting the two felines with simian characters, almost humanized. By a more than naïve structural error, the sculptor depicts the lions standing, but with the lions' hind legs bent as if they were sitting. In addition, the tail that turns back on the back comes from under the belly and not from the lower back. The tails, much worn by centuries of wear and tear from supporting thousands of children on their backs, end in a tuft. Holes in the center of the ears suggest that two large gilded bronze ears were inserted in the Persian style. The original provenance appears to be an ancient medieval structure destroyed by the earthquake in Messina and Reggio Calabria in 1908.