Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Corpus
Acquired by a Private Collector and donated to the Art Gallery of Ontario
The only sculpture that Bernini made for himself after his childhood, this is one of the greatest bronze statues ever executed. It is chased and finished with a degree of naturalism far beyond that of any other known bronze of any period in the world. Misidentified for decades—it failed to sell at an auction in 1975 for $200—it came back to light in 2005. Bernini made only one other full-scale version of this statue, for King Philip IV of Spain, which is now in the Escorial.