Head of Apollo of the Kassel Type
Unknown (Roman, after a type linked to Phidias) · 150-175 AD
The head alone survives from a statue of Apollo of the type called Kassel, after the best preserved copy in that German city. Long locks are drawn in bands from a central parting and braided around the head, though the plaits look unfinished, and the hair on the crown was only roughed out with a chisel, perhaps because the statue stood high and the top could not be seen. The parotid locks that hung beside the cheeks are lost, and half the nose is missing. The pitted surface at the back of the skull shows where a separate piece was once joined.
The Kassel type is generally traced to a bronze Apollo of the mid fifth century BC, often identified with the Apollo Parnopios by Phidias that Pausanias saw on the Acropolis. This copy was carved in the third quarter of the second century AD, probably in Athens, perhaps from marble of Mount Hymettos nearby, and it was found there. The Louvre bought it in 1880. Note the heavy, almost square jaw and the calm, downcast gaze: the severe grandeur of the early classical style, seen through Roman eyes.
Did You Know? The sculptor never finished the top of the head; the hair on the crown is only roughed out, probably because nobody was meant to see it.
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