On the Apollo...

This Apollo statue is a II-century A.D. replica of an Apollo Lyceios statuary type by Praxiteles. The sculpture was found in 1553 by Leone Strozzi in a land of his own property on the Esquiline hill in Rome; he donated it to Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici and until 1787 it remained in the magnificent, Parnassian garden of his Pincian villa.

Head and neck, right arm and shoulder, left forearm and hand, quiver and snake’s head and best part of its body are modern integrations by an unknown XVII- or VIII -century artist; large inlays repair other less evident flaws. Greatly interesting are also more recent integrations surely inspired by the more famous “Apollino”, placed in the Tribune at the end of the VII century.

The widely reworked surface and the many vicissitudes to which the statue was subjected over the centuries make restoration procedures particularly complex.