Bust of The Apollo Belvedere, 19th Century Italian

Description:

Apollo, the god of the sun and light, music and poetry, healing and medicine, prophecy, and archery. Often depicted as a youthful and beautiful archer, Apollo was known for his power and complexity, embodying both benevolence and the potential for vengeance. His influence extended to various aspects of Greek culture, from art and music to religion and prophecy, making him one of the most important and complex figures in the Greek pantheon.

The full length original statue was discovered in Rome in 1489, among the ruins of an ancient domus on the Viminal Hill, and was immediately acquired by Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere. When he was elected pope under the name of Julius II (1503-1513), he had the sculpture moved to the Vatican, where it is documented to have been present in the Belvedere since 1508. 

The Apollo Belvedere was made by a copyist workshop that, active in Rome in the first decades of the 2nd century A.D., replicated the bronze masterpiece made in Greece around 330 B.C., probably by the Athenian Leochares, one of the most famous artists of the time.