Italian school of the 19th century.

Italian school of the 19th century.
Bust of "Apollo Belvedere".
White marble.
Measurements: 85 x 65 x 38 cm.

Marble sculpture of remarkable quality, ascribed to neoclassicism, a movement interested in returning to the present the artistic magnificence of Greco-Roman antiquity. For the sculptors of Neoclassicism, the copies were not minor works, but by reproducing the ancient wonders, they felt that their inner self was filled with techniques and knowledge that had been forgotten for so long. That is why they often reached high artistic levels, such as the piece shown here. It is a copy of the "Apollo Belvedere" kept in the Pio-Clementine Museum in the Vatican. In this case, the carver focuses on the bust of the god of music and hunting, where the physiognomic ideal of masculine perfection, as it was claimed in the 18th century, is concentrated. The hairless countenance is not, however, that of a young man. He appears to us as an adult man, with an impassive and inaccessible countenance. At the same time, he stands outside of time, as an emblem of eternal youth and beauty. A cloak envelops his chest, falls down his back and is draped with naturalistic folds. The head turns to the left, adorned by kinky hair and carved with supreme virtuosity.

The Apollo Belvedere is a work attributed to the Greek sculptor Leocares (350-300 BC). Although the original has been lost, an ancient Roman copy is preserved, discovered at the end of the 15th century and exhibited in the Cortile del Belvedere of the Vatican from 1511. In fact, it was the first important ancient piece acquired by Giuliano della Rovere, the future Pope Julius II, and to this day remains in the collection of the Vatican Museums. The work acquired great celebrity from the fifteenth century onwards, and for a long time was considered the ideal of male physical perfection, as well as one of the most precious relics of classical antiquity. It was a very widespread sculpture, both through copies and engravings, until it became one of the symbols of Western civilization.