Apollo Victorious over the Serpent Python
Unknown Italian sculptor · 1685-1715
Over three metres high, Apollo stands in triumph above the monstrous serpent Python, which he has just killed with his arrows at Delphi. The god's body follows a long, elegant curve, the head turned in the opposite direction to the pose of the legs, and the coils of the serpent wind around the base to give the composition its width. Look at the scale of the block and the way the cloak and the snake's body have been used to brace the free-standing figure. The story, from Ovid, was a favourite of princely gardens, where the sun god who rids the earth of a monster flattered the ruler who owned the park.
The group was carved in Italy around 1700 by a sculptor whose name has not been recovered. It must originally have belonged to a larger ensemble, perhaps a fountain, and its early history is unknown. According to a family tradition it was bought in the Fontainebleau region at the end of the nineteenth century, and it belonged to the Ephrussi collection and then to the de Broglie family at the château of Vaux-le-Pénil. Jean Rouge presented it to the Louvre in 1980.
Did You Know? Nobody knows who carved it or for which garden; it was probably part of a fountain before it turned up near Fontainebleau in the nineteenth century.
Unlock the Full Guide
Read every room and listen to every work in all museums with premium.