The Queen's College, on High Street, was given a large plaster cast of a wild boar, in 1774. For some time this cast stood in the college library. Today it is in the Cast Gallery of the Ashmolean Museum. An article in the Oxford University and City Guide of 1820 may explain why this particular cast was given to the college.
The marble statue from which the cast was taken was found in Italy in the 16th century, and exhibited in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence. The statue was highly regarded and often copied because it was thought to be a 4th century BC Greek original. It is now known that it is not an original, but a copy of an earlier work.
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Last updated:
30 October, 2007