The Premier Auction at Brunk (23% buyer’s premium) in Asheville, North Carolina included this 3ft 10in (1.17m) carrara marble Cleopatra morente by the Italian sculptor Pio Fedi (1816-92).

Extracted from Antiques Trade Gazette | Anne Crane

The artist’s best-known work is the Rape of Polyxena, 1866, in the Loggia dei Lanzi, Piazza della Signoria, Florence.

This work from 1842 is signed Pio. Fedi. Fio-o/Scolpiva and dates from the period when Fedi was working in Vienna and in the Rome workshop of fellow Neoclassical sculptor Pietro Tenerani (1789-1869).

It came for sale from a private collection in Atlanta, Georgia, with an estimate of $20,000-30,000 but attracted plenty of interest at the auction on February 8 before selling at $120,000 (£92,300).