Statue of a Boy as Apollo, with unrelated Head Portrait
Of unknown provenance, the statue was entrusted to the sculptor Antonio d’Este for restoration in 1828, for subsequent placement in Room I, until it was moved to its current location in Room III in 1888. The statue, small in size, depicts a naked boy, standing with the weight on his left leg, with his right leg outstretched; a cloak covers his horizontally raised left arm, while the right arm, restored in a bent position, was originally lowered alongside the body. The identification with the sun god, Apollo, derives from certain similarities with the famous Apollo in the Cortile del Belvedere, depicted as an archer.
The Borghese sculpture was given an unrelated head portrait of a child, which shows the characteristic stylistic features of Severan portraiture, particularly in the sharp chiaroscuro contrast between the smooth surfaces of the face and the soft, curly hair created with a drill.
Object details
Inventory
Location
Date
2nd century A.D. (figure); 2nd-3rd century A.D. (head)
Classification
Medium
Dimensions
height without plinth 97 cm; head 16 cm
Provenance
Collezione Borghese (ante 1828; Archivio Apostolico Vaticano, Archivio Borghese, b. 1007, fasc. 301, no. 9); Inventario Fidecommissario Borghese 1833, C, p. 45, no. 62 (room I). Purchased by the Italian State in 1902.
Conservation and Diagnostic
- 1828, Antonio D’Este
- 1918, Cesare Fossi
- 1996-97, Consorzio Capitolino
Commentary
Of unknown provenance, the statue is mentioned for the first time in 1828 in one of the two lists accompanying the fourth note on works chosen to be restored and placed in the rooms of the Casino Borghese, which housed the collection that was reassembled following the sale of sculptures to Napoleon Bonaparte. The statue, identified as Apollo, was entrusted to the sculptor Antonio d’Este for restoration; the restoration work is described in the fifth note: “made the nose, all the fingers on the missing hand, well cleaned and patinated” (Archivio Apostolico Vaticano, Archivio Borghese, bust 1007, fasc. 301, no. 9; Moreno, Sforzini 1987, pp. 361, 363). First placed in Room I, in 1888 it was moved to Room III in place of the Melpomene Muse of Monte Calvo, moved to the upper floor in anticipation of its sale.
The statue, which is small in size, depicts a naked boy, standing with his weight on his left leg, with the right one in a forward position; a cloak covers the left arm raised horizontally, while the right arm, restored in a bent position, was originally lowered alongside the body. The identification with the sun god, Apollo, derives from certain similarities – in the balance, the lateral extension of the left arm and the original lowering of the right as well as the direction of the head – with the famous Apollo in the Cortile del Belvedere (Musei Vaticani, Museo Pio Clementino, inv. 1015). With Winckelmann, it became a paradigm of the “noble simplicity and quiet grandeur” of Greek art, its archetype associated with the work of the Athenian sculptor Leochares (360-320 BC), recognising in it the image of the Apollo Pythios mentioned by Pausanias (I.3 .4), which together with Apollo Patroos and Alexikakos was placed in front of the temple of Apollo Patroos on the western side of the agora of Athens (on the type, see Simon 1984, pp. 381-382, no. 57; Angelicoussis 2017, pp. 99-105). Plaster casts of the Augustan work from Baiae reveal that the Apollo Pythios was depicted as prepubescent, without pubic hair, consistent with the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, which places the battle with the serpent Python in the early days of the god’s life (M.A. Campi Flegrei, Bacoli, inv. no. 174.493).
In the Vatican statue, the god is moving to the right after killing Python, rolled over on his torso on the left, completely naked and wearing a cloak that falls over his left arm: he originally held a bow in his left hand and probably an arrow in his right. Moreno suggests that the absence of the balteo or belt in the Borghese statue could indicate an identification with the Apollo Hylàtes (or Silvanus) worshipped in Cyprus, whose iconography is only attested by numismatic documents that depict the god with a stone in his right hand and a bow in his left (Moreno, Viacava 2003).
The Borghese sculpture is completed by an unrelated portrait head of a boy. The face, with a pronounced structure, wide at the temples, has large protruding eyes; the irises and pupils, turned upwards, are incised in a crescent shape. The modelling of the cheeks is smooth and even, the mouth small and fleshy. The thick hair of soft ringed curls, sloping over the forehead and made with a drill, is held back by a smooth headdress, creating a sharp chiaroscuro contrast and suggesting a date to the period between the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century CE, with a vague allusion to the child portraits of Geta and Caracalla (Naples, Mann, inv. 6082).
Jessica Clementi
Bibliography
- Indicazione delle opere antiche di scultura esistenti nel primo piano della Villa Borghese, Roma 1840, p. 11, n. 6.
- A. Nibby, Roma nell’anno 1838, Roma 1841, p. 914, n. 6.
- Indicazione delle opere antiche di scultura esistenti nel primo piano della Villa Borghese, Roma 1854 (1873), p. 13, n. 13.
- A. Venturi, Il Museo e la Galleria Borghese, Roma 1893, p. 31.
- G. Giusti, La Galerie Borghèse et la Ville Humbert Premier à Rome, Roma 1904, p. 25.
- P. Della Pergola, La Galleria Borghese in Roma, Roma 1954, p. 12.
- R. Calza, Catalogo del Gabinetto fotografico Nazionale, Galleria Borghese, Collezione degli oggetti antichi, Roma 1957, p. 15, n. 159.
- P. Moreno, Museo e Galleria Borghese, La collezione archeologica, Roma 1980, p. 15.
- P. Moreno, S. Staccioli, Le collezioni della Galleria Borghese, Milano 1981, p. 102, fig. a p. 90.
- E. Simon, s.v. Apollon, in “Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae”, II, 1 Zürich und München 1984, pp. 381-382, n. 57.
- P. Moreno, C. Sforzini, I ministri del principe Camillo: cronaca della collezione Borghese di antichità dal 1807 al 1832, in “Scienze dell’Antichità”, 1, 1987, pp. 339-371, in part. pp 361; 363.
- P. Moreno, Le sculture antiche nella stanza di Apollo e Dafne, in Apollo e Dafne del Bernini nella Galleria Borghese, a cura di K. Herrmann Fiore, Milano 1997, pp. 41-61, in part. pp. 45, 60, fig. 6.
- P. Moreno, A. Viacava, I marmi antichi della Galleria Borghese. La collezione archeologica di Camillo e Francesco Borghese, Roma 2003, pp. 196-197, n. 178.
- E. Angelicoussis (a cura di), Reconstructing the Lansdowne Collection of Classical Marbles, II, Munich 2017.
- Scheda di catalogo 99000056, G. Ciccarello 2021
