The Apollo Belvedere is an iconic sculpture, this copy in the garden at Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire, England.
Wikipedia writes, "a celebrated marble sculpture from classical antiquity...The work has been dated to mid-way through the 2nd century A.D. and is considered to be a Roman copy of an original bronze statue created between 330 and 320 B.C. by the Greek sculptor Leochares...rediscovered in central Italy in the late 15th century...placed on semi-public display in the Vatican Palace in 1511, where it remains...The lower part of the right arm and the left hand were missing when discovered and were restored by Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli (1507–1563), a sculptor and pupil of Michelangelo...From the mid-18th century it was considered the greatest ancient sculpture by ardent neoclassicists, and for centuries it epitomized the ideals of aesthetic perfection for Europeans and westernized parts of the world.
Wikipedia writes, "a celebrated marble sculpture from classical antiquity...The work has been dated to mid-way through the 2nd century A.D. and is considered to be a Roman copy of an original bronze statue created between 330 and 320 B.C. by the Greek sculptor Leochares...rediscovered in central Italy in the late 15th century...placed on semi-public display in the Vatican Palace in 1511, where it remains...The lower part of the right arm and the left hand were missing when discovered and were restored by Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli (1507–1563), a sculptor and pupil of Michelangelo...From the mid-18th century it was considered the greatest ancient sculpture by ardent neoclassicists, and for centuries it epitomized the ideals of aesthetic perfection for Europeans and westernized parts of the world.
In the words of the Vatican Museum's website: "This statue was part of the collection which Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere held in his palace in Rome. When he was elected Pope as Julius II (1503-1513) the statue was transferred to the Vatican...The god, Apollo, moves forward majestically and seems to have just released an arrow from the bow which he originally carried in his left hand."
In 2022, London's Victoria & Albert Museum mounted an exhibit on men's fashions, above. It began, suitably, with "Undressed" using the Apollo Belvedere's unclothed body as its starting point.
Below, copies of the famous statue as seen in numerous museums, country houses, and gardens. In the Neoclassical Age, no forms of art were more revered than those of the ancient Greeks and Romans.
Below, Apollo in the Marble Hall of Kedleston Manor, as designed by the famed architect Robert Adam (1728-92).
Below, copies of the famous statue as seen in numerous museums, country houses, and gardens. In the Neoclassical Age, no forms of art were more revered than those of the ancient Greeks and Romans.
Below, Apollo in the Marble Hall of Kedleston Manor, as designed by the famed architect Robert Adam (1728-92).
Above left and right, at Kedleston in Derbyshire.
Below, at the opposite end of the Great Hall from The Dying Gaul at Syon House in Greater London.
Below, at the opposite end of the Great Hall from The Dying Gaul at Syon House in Greater London.
Below left, in bronze, at Huntington Museum and Gardens, in California.
Right, the Apollo on the insgnia of NASA's Apollo 17, the sixth moon landing, in 1972 .
Right, the Apollo on the insgnia of NASA's Apollo 17, the sixth moon landing, in 1972 .
Below, as originally discovered in the late 15th Century at Porto Anzio in Italy.
Below, an etching of Sir Thomas Lawrence's Private Sitting Room in December, 1830, after the painter's death, published by Archibald Keightley, executor of the estate. In the back row of reproductions, we find our Apollo on the far left, National Portrait Gallery.
One cannot imagine how many of versions of the Apollo Belvedere exist in marble, bronze, and plaster. I suspect it can be be made by 3D printers too. As a model for artists, it probably cannot be surpassed.
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