Hyacinth Wounded
Francois-Joseph Bosio (1768-1845) · 1817
A naked youth lies stretched along the ground, propped on his elbows, one hand resting on a discus, his face turned towards you with a soft, faraway look. He is Hyacinth, the beloved of Apollo, who was killed when the god's discus struck him; from his blood sprang the flower that bears his name. The Salon catalogue of 1817 described him as half reclining, leaning on his discus, watching the game while waiting his turn, which places the scene just before the fatal throw. The long, low figure is designed to be seen from the front like a relief, and the marble is finished with the porcelain smoothness that Bosio learned from Canova.
Bosio signed the plinth as first sculptor to the king, the title he held under the Restoration. The royal household bought the statue from the Salon of 1817 for twelve thousand francs and placed it in the Luxembourg museum, and it entered the Louvre in October 1847. It is one of the purest examples in the museum of the neoclassical taste for the adolescent male nude.
Did You Know? The sculptor chose the calm moment before the accident, so the wound in the title has not yet happened.
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