École FRANÇAISE du début du XVIIe siècle d'après l'antique :

APOLLON OF BELVEDERE. Bronze with brown patina. H. 36.5 cm, resting on a yellow marble base of Siena. H.: 16 cm Old restorations. Reference work: Mid 2nd century AD, Apollo of Belvedere, white marble, Rome, Vatican Museum, n°inv.1015. Related literature: - Geneviève Bresc-Bautier, Guilhem Scherf, Bronzes français : de la Renaissance au Siècle des Lumières, cat. exp. Paris, Musées du Louvre, 22 October 2008-19 January 2009; New York, Metropolitan Museum of art, 23 February-24 May 2000; Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 30 June-27 September 2009, Paris, Musée du Louvre éditions: Somogy éditions, 2008. - David Bourgarit, Jane Bassett, Francesca G. Bewer, French bronze sculpture: materials and techniques 16th-18th century, London, Archetype, 2014. - Francis Haskell, Nicholas Penny, For the Love of Antiquity: Greco-Roman Statuary and European Taste, 1500-1900, Paris, Hachette, 1999. Mentioned in the Vatican as early as 1509, L'Apollon du Belvédère, ceded by Pope Pius VI to Napoleon, arrived in France in 1798. François I had commissioned moulds of it in 1540 and had a bronze version cast for Fontainebleau. The work was therefore already well known in France in the mid-16th century. Our small replica is part of the production of bronze statuettes that began to spread widely in the early 17th century. This type of casting, with little cold working and not much care taken with the surface treatment, is found in particular on certain bronzes executed after models by Barthélemy Prieur (1536-1611). The supple modelling, the elongated torso and the long limbs are also reminiscent of the aesthetics of the Parisian sculptor.