Head Of Apollo Of Belvedere. Italian Academic Drawing. XIX Century

Head of Apollo of the Belvedere
Technique: Charcoal on paper
Italian Academic Drawing, 19th Century
Drawing is in very good condition.

Dimensions:  52cm x  44cm
The head of Apollo of the Belvedere, immortalized with charcoal on paper, offers us a glimpse of the divine, a vision of perfection.
The drawing is framed in an 18th-century wooden frame painted to simulate marble,  protected by unbreakable glass (plexiglass). 

The Apollo of the Belvedere, the epitome of the sublime Greek ideal, is not merely a statue. It is the eternal anthem of aesthetics, a dream of perfection embodied in marble. Discovered in central Italy at the end of the 15th century, acquired by Pope Julius II, and placed in the Cortile del Belvedere, the statue represents a point of contact between the earthly and the divine, a harmony of forms and proportions that speaks of a distant era, yet remains alive in our imagination.
Yet, even a god is not immune to the caprices of fate. The Apollo of the Belvedere, seized during the Napoleonic spoliations and taken to the Louvre in 1798, embodies the paradox of beauty as a spoils of war. In that moment, art becomes a symbol of conquest, a prized piece of a collection that, with cynical beauty, reflects the darker instincts of humanity. It was only after Napoleon’s fall and with the intervention of Antonio Canova that Apollo was triumphantly returned to Rome in 1815, finding once again its home in the sacred space of the Vatican.

This drawing is part of a 19th-century collection from the Accademia Albertina of Turin, and in its understated grace it offers us a vision of art that is both a tribute to the past and an expression of timeless wonder. 

In this drawing, we find not just a portrait of Apollo, but an invitation to dream, , it is a fragment of that beauty which, continues to inspire and nurture our desire for elegance and perfection.