Praxiteles - Apollo the Python-Slayer - 2004

''Apollo Sauroktonos'' (

Attic Greek Attic Greek is the Greek language, Greek dialect of the regions of ancient Greece, ancient region of Attica, including the ''polis'' of classical Athens, Athens. Often called Classical Greek, it was the prestige (sociolinguistics), prestige diale ...

: Άπόλλων Σαυροκτόνος) (

Apollo Apollo is one of the Twelve Olympians, Olympian deities in Ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek and Ancient Roman religion, Roman religion and Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, mu ...

Lizard-killer) is the title of several 1st – 2nd century AD Roman marble copies of an original by the ancient Greek sculptor

Praxiteles Praxiteles (; ) of Athens, the son of Cephisodotus the Elder, was the most renowned of the Attic sculptors of the 4th century BC. He was the first to sculpt the nude female form in a life-size statue. While no indubitably attributable sculpture ...

. The statues depict a nude adolescent

about to catch a lizard climbing up a tree. Copies are included in the collections of the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...

Museum, the

Vatican Museums The Vatican Museums (; ) are the public museums of the Vatican City. They display works from the immense collection amassed by the Catholic Church and the papacy throughout the centuries, including several of the best-known Roman sculptures and ...

, and the

National Museums Liverpool National Museums Liverpool, formerly National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside, comprises several museums and art galleries in and around Liverpool in Merseyside, England. All the museums and galleries in the group have free admission. The mu ...

Original

The bronze original of this sculpture is attributed by Pliny (XXXIV, 69-70) to the Athenian sculptor

and is usually dated to c.350-340 BC.

Martial Marcus Valerius Martialis (known in English as Martial ; March, between 38 and 41 AD – between 102 and 104 AD) was a Roman and Celtiberian poet born in Bilbilis, Hispania (modern Spain) best known for his twelve books of '' Epigrams'', pu ...

wrote an epigram about the statue (14, 172): "Spare the lizard, treacherous boy, creeping toward you; it desires to perish by your hands." The

Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. Located in the Wade Park District of University Circle, the museum is internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian art, Asian and Art of anc ...

claims to own a bronze original (or part-original) of this work. The work is currently being analyzed to verify this claim by scholars and archaeologists.

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

has raised questions about ownership and title.

Copies

About forty copies of the Apollo Sauroctonos are known to exist. It is also depicted on Roman gems and coins. A marble copy of the Apollo Sauroctonos is in the collection of the Louvre, with the catalogue number MR 78 (n° usuel Ma 441). It is high, and the left arm, the right hand and the lizard's head are modern restorations. Formerly in the

Borghese collection The Borghese Collection is a collection of Roman sculptures, old masters and modern art collected by the Roman Borghese family, especially Cardinal Scipione Borghese, from the 17th century on. It includes major collections of Caravaggio, Raphae ...

, it was bought by Napoleon in 1807. Other copies are in the collections of the

Villa Albani The Villa Albani (later Villa Albani-Torlonia) is a villa in Rome, built on the Via Salaria for Cardinal Alessandro Albani. It was built between 1747 and 1767 by the architect Carlo Marchionni in a project heavily influenced by otherssuch as Gi ...

, and

Iconography

The statue depicts Apollo as a youth, unusually for classical artwork which normally did not portray gods other than

Dionysus In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, myth, Dionysus (; ) is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. He was also known as Bacchus ( or ; ...

and

Eros Eros (, ; ) is the Greek god of love and sex. The Romans referred to him as Cupid or Amor. In the earliest account, he is a primordial god, while in later accounts he is the child of Aphrodite. He is usually presented as a handsome young ma ...

as children or adolescents. Martin Robertson has suggested that the statue alludes to the myth of Apollo slaying the serpent

Python Python may refer to: Snakes * Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia ** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia * Python (mythology), a mythical serpent Computing * Python (prog ...

Jenifer Neils Jenifer Neils (born October 16, 1950) is an American classical archaeologist and was from July 2017 to June 2022 director of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Formerly she was the Elsie B. Smith Professor in the Liberal Arts in ...

disputes this, noting that Python is depicted elsewhere in Greek art as a giant snake, and there is no reason to believe that ancient audiences would have associated the small lizard depicted on the Apollo Sauroctonos with Python. Alternatively, the statue may depict Apollo healing the lizard, related to a myth that the lizard, when it loses its sight, is healed by looking at the sun.

Notes

External links

Louvre cataloguePerseus entry
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sauroctonos, Apollo Ancient Greek and Roman sculptures in the Louvre Antiquities acquired by Napoleon Borghese antiquities Sauroctonos Lizards in art Roman copies of 4th-century BC Greek sculptures Sculptures by Praxiteles Nude sculptures of men