Italian school. Grand Tour, early 18th century

Italian school. Grand Tour, early eighteenth century
"Apollo Belvedere".
Gilded bronze.
Marble pedestal.
Measurements: 8 x 6 x 4 cm (bust); 13 x 8 x 8 x 8 cm (pedestal).

Bronze copy of the famous Apollo Belvedere preserved in the Pio-Clementine Museum of the Vatican, this piece is a magnificent example of the veneration for classical models that dominated European taste during the eighteenth century. In that context, owning a reduction of the great sculptures of Antiquity was tantamount to treasuring a supreme symbol of culture and status.

The work is fully in the tradition of the Grand Tour, the formative journey that young aristocrats made through Italy. Carrying a reproduction of the Apollo Belvedere meant appropriating the ideal of absolute beauty. The face of the god, with its characteristic sideways glance and the complex arrangement of the hair, embodies that "noble simplicity and serene grandeur" exalted by theorists such as Winckelmann.

The use of gilded bronze suggests its destiny in a high-end private collection. The quality of the casting and the finish of the metal, together with the elegant marble base of chromatic contrast, transform the classical rigor into a piece of refined decorative character, in keeping with the European taste of the early 18th century.