Seated Apollo

This bronze depicts the ancient Roman god Apollo, the god of music and the sun. The sculpture was based on a well-known fragment of an ancient sculpture known as the Torso Belvedere, named for its location in a Vatican courtyard. The antique marble displays exaggerated muscles and a slightly twisted body. The artist who created this smaller 16th-century sculpture used a more upright pose and less pronounced musculature, reflecting a more measured approach to representing the human form. The artist based the head on ancient images of Apollo with its aquiline nose and idealized features.