Sacred Art & Iconography

Apollo Belvedere

Greco-Roman Art

A white marble statue of Apollo shown as a standing archer, caught in contrapposto just after loosing an arrow, conventionally read as the moment after his slaying of the serpent Python, though other readings exist. It is a Roman copy of about AD 120 to 140, made after a lost Greek bronze original attributed to the sculptor Leochares and dated around 330 to 320 BC. Rediscovered in central Italy around 1489, it was brought into the papal collection by Pope Julius II in the early sixteenth century and has stood in the Cortile del Belvedere of the Pio-Clementino Museum, part of the Vatican Museums, ever since. From the mid-eighteenth century, championed by Johann Joachim Winckelmann, it was held up by neoclassicists as the single greatest surviving work of ancient sculpture, an ideal of aesthetic perfection across Western art for two centuries. A restoration completed in 2024 by Patrons of the Arts in the Vatican Museums found traces of gilding, indicating the statue's hair was originally painted or gilded gold. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Facts

Origins

Creationthe subject's own account

120 to 140 CE 1

Date of Creationthe subject's own account

About AD 120 to 140 (Roman copy of a Greek original of c.330-320 BC) 1

Attributed Tothe subject's own account

After a lost bronze original by Leochares 1

Countrythe subject's own account

Vatican City (Rome) 1

Classification

Object Typethe subject's own account

Sculpture or Statuary 2

Subject Matter

Depicted Subjectthe subject's own account

Apollo as a standing archer, shown just after loosing an arrow, conventionally read as the moment after slaying the serpent Python. 1

Rights and Reproduction

Reproduction and Copyrightthe subject's own account

The statue itself is centuries past any copyright term, but a specific modern photograph of it carries its own separate copyright. This atlas describes and cites the work rather than reproducing an image of it. 2

Physical Form

Mediumthe subject's own account

White marble 1

Dimensionsthe subject's own account

2.24 m (88 in) tall 1

Custody

Current Locationthe subject's own account

Cortile del Belvedere, Pio-Clementino Museum, Vatican Museums 2

Current Custodianthe subject's own account

Vatican Museums 2

Medium (class)the subject's own account

Sculpture 2

In Other Languages (9 names)

Connections

Associated With

Apollo

This source names Apollo directly: "A white marble statue of Apollo shown as a standing archer, caught in contrapposto just after loosing an arrow, conventionally read as the moment after his slaying of the serpent Python, though..."