THE TITLE OF this article may seem somewhat provocative, in view of the existence of the red-chalk portrait of Pierre Legros, which shows the celebrated French sculptor seated beneath an extravagantly billowing curtain with a portrait bust, portfolio, drill and hammer at his feet, gazing fixedly at the spectator and proudly pointing his chisel at a model of St Bartholomew, as if this were the consummate symbol of his art, indeed of his entire career.  Of the history of the marble figures of the Apostles in the nave of S. Giovanni in Laterano, however, we know from various sources that some of the sculptors engaged from the outset, such as Jean-Baptiste Théodon, Anton Francesco Andreozzi and Pietro Balestra, were subsequently dismissed.

ESTABLISHED IN ROME from 1744, the Scottish painter Gavin Hamilton became so central a figure in the cultural life of the city that a visit to his studio was on the itinerary of many Grand Tourists with money to spend. While he is widely recognised as a founding father of Neo-classicism, his influence on late eighteenth-century taste was exercised in ways other than through his painting. From the late 1750s he was active as a dealer in antique sculpture and, a decade later, as an excavator of ancient sites, acquiring choice pieces from important Roman collections and unearthing a large number of marbles from a succession of speculative digs, most notably at Hadrian's Villa in Tivoli (1769-71).