0163ANCIENTApolloGL

Apollo Belvedere, mid-2nd Century AD Roman marble after Greek 4th Century BC bronze, Museo Pio-Clementino, Vatican Museums, inv. no. 1015.

Named after the Belevedere Courtyard, where it has so long been situated within the Vatican Museums, this sculpture of Apollonian perfection has played an important role in art-historical discourse for more than 400 years.

The Apollo Belevedere was found in the 16th Century.

Leochares' bronze original stood in the Athenian Agora (Pausanias 1.3.4). ... Pope Julius II (14th Ct) acquired this marble copy.

Montorsoli's 1532 hands were removed in 1924 and then later restored.

The sculpture has a long influence in western art since its rediscovery in the Renaissance. Morford & Lenardon discuss this p. 272 (ed. 10). Even if artists now are less enamored of the sculpture, in the past many artists saw it as an ideal and therefore copied it. Cf. Benjamin West and Albrecht Dürer, mentioned on the righ sidebar.