id: 163448 accession number: 2004.30 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/2004.30 updated: 2023-01-19 20:56:27.138000 Apollo the Python-Slayer, c. 350 BC. Attributed to Praxiteles (Greek, c. 400BC-c. 330BC). Bronze, copper, and stone inlay; base: 0.5 x 47.3 x 40.7 cm (3/16 x 18 5/8 x 16 in.); overall: 150 x 50.3 x 66.8 cm (59 1/16 x 19 13/16 x 26 5/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund 2004.30 title: Apollo the Python-Slayer title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: c. 350 BC creation date earliest: -340 creation date latest: -360 current location: 100 1916 Lobby creditline: Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund copyright: --- culture: Greece, Athens, mid-fourth century technique: bronze, copper, and stone inlay department: Greek and Roman Art collection: GR - Greek type: Sculpture find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Praxiteles (Greek, c. 400BC-c. 330BC) - artist c. 400/390-330/325 BC --- measurements: Base: 0.5 x 47.3 x 40.7 cm (3/16 x 18 5/8 x 16 in.); Overall: 150 x 50.3 x 66.8 cm (59 1/16 x 19 13/16 x 26 5/16 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS --- PROVENANCE Ernst-Ulrich Walter, Germany date: footnotes: citations: [Phoenix Ancient Art, 2004] date: 2004 footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 2004- footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: Apollo, son of Zeus and Leto, is depicted as an adolescent rather than a mature god. digital description: This bronze sculpture of Apollo formerly known as "Sauroktonos," or lizard-slayer, is attributed to the renowned Greek sculptor Praxiteles. The survival of an original bronze sculpture attributed to a known artist in ancient Greece is extraordinarily rare. This sculptor is otherwise known only from Roman marble copies of his works. wall description: Although Praxiteles was more successful, and therefore more famous for his marble sculptures, he nevertheless also created very beautiful works in bronze. He made a youthful Apollo called the Sauroktonos (Lizard-Slayer), waiting in ambush for a creeping lizard, close at hand, with an arrow. -Pliny the Elder, 1st century ad This statue of the Apollo Sauroktonos may be the one Pliny the Elder saw in the 1st century ad. The complete sculpture most likely showed the young god pulling back a slender laurel tree with his raised left hand, while holding an arrow at waist level with his right, poised to strike the lizard creeping up the tree. Two Roman marble copies preserve the complete composition: one in the Louvre, the other in the Vatican. The museum's sculpture is the only known life-size bronze version of the Apollo Sauroktonos. Technical features such as the way the sculpture was cast and repaired in antiquity, the copper inlays of the lips and nipples, and the stone insert for the right eye (the left is a restoration) are consistent with a date in the 4th century bc. However, technically it may have been possible to produce such a work in the Hellenistic period. The Apollo Sauroktonos is thought to have been created by Praxiteles about 350 bc. Androgynous sensuality and languid, gracefully curved poses are hallmarks of his style. The finest large classical Greek statues were bronzes, but few have survived. If this sculpture is a product of Praxiteles' workshop, it is the only large Greek bronze statue that can be attributed to a Greek sculptor. Praxiteles was widely popular in his day. His famous Aphrodite of Cnidus (late 360s bc) introduced the life-size nude female figure to Western art. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS "Original, copie, représentation antique? Quleques considérations sur les images d'Apollo Sauroktonos," in eds. Colloque international sur les bronzes antiques, Crişan Muçeţeanu, Lucia Teposu Marinescu, Christina Ştirbulescu, and Valentin Bottez, The Antique bronzes typology, chronology, authenticity : the acta of the 16the International Congress of Antique Bronzes organised by the Romanian National History Museum, Bucharest, May 26th-31st 2003 (Bucharest: Cetatea de Scaun, 2004), pp. 301-304. page number: url: "Acquisitions of the year," Apollo: The International Magazine of Art and Antiques. (December 2004). page number: p. 51 (ill.). url: Brand, Arthur. Het verboden Judas-evangelie en de schat van Carchemish. Soesterberg: Aspekt, 2006. page number: p. 140, fig. 6 url: Praxitèle. Paris: Société française de promotion artistique, 2007. page number: p. 207, fig. 126a url: Laugier, Ludovic. "Praxitèle et la Polychromie," Dossier de l'Art, no. 139 (March 2007) page number: p. 56 url: Harris, Lucian. "Louvre will not show Cleveland Apollo." The Art Newspaper vol. XVI no. 178 (March 2007) page number: url: Flescher, Sharon, "Cleveland Museum Returns 14 Works To Italy," IFAR Journal vol. 11 (9), 2009 page number: p. 7, fig. 3 url: Barbillon, Claire, and Sophie Mouquin. Écrire la sculpture: de l'antiquité à Louise Bourgeois : une anthologie. Paris: Citadelles & Mazenod, 2011. page number: p. 37 url: Olszewski, Edward J. "Praxiteles' Apollo and Pliny's "Lizard Slayer."" Source: Notes in the History of Art 31:2 (Winter 2012) page number: p.4, fig. 1A url: Cleveland Museum of Art, David Franklin, and C. Griffith Mann. Treasures from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2012. page number: pp. 38-9 url: Bennett, Michael J. 2013. Praxiteles: The Cleveland Apollo. Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art. page number: url: Brinkmann, Vinzenz. Zurück zur Klassik: ein neuer Blick auf das Alte Griechenland : eine Ausstellung der Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung, Frankfurt am Main, 8. Februar bis 26. Mai 2013. München: Hirmer, 2013. page number: Abb. 230, p. 222 ; Abb. 234, p. 224 ; Abb. 242, p. 226 ; Abb. 243, p. 227 ; Abb. 247, p. 229 ; p. 214 url: Gill, David. Context Matters 'The Cleveland Apollo Goes Public' The Journal of Art Crime 10 (Fall 2013): 71-75. page number: Mentioned: p. 71-75 url: Cleveland Museum of Art. The CMA Companion: A Guide to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: P. 83 url: Snyder, Colleen, Ernst Pernicka, and Peter Northover. "The Cleveland Apollo: Recent Research and Revelations." In Colloque International Sur les Bronzes Antiques. Artistry in Bronze: The Greeks and Their Legacy: XIX International Congress on Ancient Bronzes, Jens Daehner, Kenneth D. S. Lapatin, and Ambra Spinelli, eds., 329-340. Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum and the Getty Conservation Institute, 2017. page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 329-340 url: http://www.getty.edu/publications/artistryinbronze/conservation-and-analysis/40-northover/ Daehner, Jens and Kenneth D. S. Lapatin. Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World. Firenze : Giunti, 2015. page number: Reproduced: pp. 24-26, fig. 1.6; url: Stephen Ongpin Fine Art, and Stephen Ongpin. Renaissance to Futurism: A Selection of Italian Drawings, 1500-1920. 2015, 6. page number: Mentioned in notes section, No. 2, Note 1 (unpagenated) url: Todisco, Luigi. Prassitele di Atene: scultore e bronzista del IV secolo. Roma: Giorgio Bretschneider editore, 2017. TAV. XII page number: Reoroduced: TAV. XII url: Angelicoussis, Elizabeth, Daniella Ben-Arie, and Andrew F Stewart. 2017. Reconstructing the Lansdowne Collection of Classical Marbles. Edited by Gerard M.-F Hill. Munich: Hirmer. page number: Pp. 113-117, Fig. 13.10. url: Neils, Jennifer. “Praxiteles to Caravaggio: The Apollo Sauroktonos Redefined.” Art Bulletin 99, no. 4 (December 2017): 10-30. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: P. 13-14, fig. 7; P. 18, fig. 13 url: Childs, William A. P. Greek Art and Aesthetics in the Fourth Century B.C. Princeton, NJ: Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University, in association with Princeton University Press, 2018. page number: Mentioned: p. 195; Reproduced: p. [439] pl. # 182 url: Stewart, Peter. "Ancient Greek Artists and Texts: Loss and Re-Creation," 47-58. Catherine M. Draycott, Rubina Raja, Katherine E. Welch, and William T. Wootton. Visual Histories of the Classical World: Essays in Honour of R.R.R. Smith. Turnhout : Brepols, 2019. page number: Reproduced: p. 51, fig. 4.2' Mentioned: p. 52 url: Isacker, Philip van, and Helen Simpson. De Sculptura: Reflections on Sculpture. Ghent : Mer. B&L, imprint of Borgerhoff & Lamberigts, 2021. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: p. 207, fig. 168 url: Pevnick, Seth and Colleen Snyder. "Shedding New Light on an Ancient Bronze Figure: Ongoing Research on the Cleveland Apollo" CMA Thinker on Medium (June 16 2022). page number: url: https://medium.com/cma-thinker/shedding-new-light-on-an-ancient-bronze-figure-b21ad979a99f --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2004.30/2004.30_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2004.30/2004.30_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2004.30/2004.30_full.tif