The Apollo of Mantua and its variants are early forms of the

Apollo Citharoedus An Apollo Citharoedus, or Apollo Citharede, is a statue or other image of Apollo with a cithara (lyre). Among the best-known examples is the '' Apollo Citharoedus'' of the Vatican Museums, a 2nd-century AD colossal marble statue by an unknown (pr ...

statue type, in which the god holds the cithara in his left arm. The type-piece, the first example discovered, is named for its location at Mantua; the type is represented by

neo-Attic Neo-Attic or Atticizing is a sculptural style, beginning in Hellenistic sculpture and vase-painting of the 2nd century BC and climaxing in Roman art of the 2nd century AD, copying, adapting or closely following the style shown in reliefs and stat ...

Imperial Roman copies of the late 1st or early 2nd century, modelled upon a supposed Greek bronze original made in the second quarter of the 5th century BCE, in a style similar to works of Polyclitus but more archaic. The Apollo held the ''cythara'' against his extended left arm, of which in the Louvre example (''illustration'') a fragment of one twisting scrolling horn upright remains against his biceps. More than a dozen other replicas of the type have been found, the principal ones being those conserved in the national museums of

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

and of

Mantua Mantua ( ; it, Mantova ; Lombard and la, Mantua) is a city and '' comune'' in Lombardy, Italy, and capital of the province of the same name. In 2016, Mantua was designated as the Italian Capital of Culture. In 2017, it was named as the Eur ...

. The lost original would have been bronze. The name of the teacher of

Phidias Phidias or Pheidias (; grc, Φειδίας, ''Pheidias''; 480 – 430 BC) was a Greek sculptor, painter, and architect. His Statue of Zeus at Olympia was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Phidias also designed the stat ...

Hegias of Athens Hegias or Hegesias of Athens ( grc-gre, Ἡγησίας) was a famous sculptor of Athens, a member of the Late Archaic school of the generation before Pheidias. No surviving work can be securely identified as his, though Pliny mentions a ''Pyrrhus ...

is sometimes invoked, but there are no surviving examples of Hegias' work to judge from. Examples include: *The Naples ''Apollo of Mantua'', a bronze found at Pompeii, in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples (inv. 5630). *The Louvre ''Apollo of Mantua'', formerly in the

Bibliothèque Mazarine The Bibliothèque Mazarine, or Mazarin Library, is located within the Palais de l'institut de France, or the Palace of the Institute of France (previously the Collège des Quatre-Nations of the University of Paris), at 23 quai de Conti in the 6 ...

, entered the museum in 1871. *The

Fogg Art Museum The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Fogg Museum (established in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985), and four research ...

''Apollo of Mantua'', a Roman bronzeSpectroscopy revealed the alloy in fact to be

brass Brass is an alloy of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn), in proportions which can be varied to achieve different mechanical, electrical, and chemical properties. It is a substitutional alloy: atoms of the two constituents may replace each other wit ...

(Congdon 1963). head of the ''Apollo of Mantua'' type, originally about one-third lifesize.

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Further reading