Apollo Belvedere
After five years of restoration, the famous Apollo Belvedere statue has been returned to public display at the Vatican Museums.
The Apollo Belvedere has been part of the Vatican Museums’ collection since 1511 by Pope Julius II and has since stood as one of the collection’s most iconic pieces. Since then, it has been influential in sculpture, figure drawing, and the genesis of neoclassicism in the eighteenth century. The sculpture is likely a second-century CE Roman marble copy of a fourth-century BCE Greek bronze statue showing Apollo as an archer. Countless artists, including Albrecht Dürer, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Antonio Canova, have copied its pose and proportions for five centuries. Others, like Giorgio de Chirico, have included parts of the statue itself in their work.
The sculpture’s restoration began at the end of 2019 when museum specialists noticed certain weaknesses in its structural integrity. However, the project became delayed after Italy became one of the countries hardest hit by the pandemic. When specialists and technicians could finally access the sculpture, they made great progress after installing carbon fiber and steel supports into the Apollo’s base to relieve pressure on the statue’s legs. A similar solution had been put in place once before in the early nineteenth century by the neoclassical sculptor Antonio Canova. The team also had to replace the statue’s left hand, itself a sixteenth-century reconstruction. While cleaning the stone, the project specialists discovered a purple stain on the Apollo’s head. After analysis, they concluded that this was residue from a compound used to apply gold leaf to the statue’s hair.
This past Monday, October 14th, Cardinal Fernando Vérgez Alzaga helped unveil the newly restored statue in its normal spot in the Vatican Museums. Given the importance of the sculpture, the Vatican Museums funded the project through its wide network of supporters and donors organized in its Patrons of the Arts system, with the New York and Illinois branches contributing a great deal of money. Several outside organizations provided funding and technical aid in the Apollo Belvedere’s restoration, including the Italian state’s Museum & Cultural Heritage Directorate and the Bank of America Art Conservation Project. “It is therefore with renewed joy,” said Cardinal Vérgez Alzaga, “that this evening we return to the eyes of the world a shining Apollo, as radiant as Homer’s, a masterpiece of art and ingenuity that we hope will continue to defy time for centuries to come.”