The Tiber Apollo is an over lifesize marble sculpture of

Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label= Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label ...

, a Hadrianic or Antonine Roman marble copy after a bronze Greek original of about 450 BCE. Dredged from the bed of the

Tiber The Tiber ( ; it, Tevere ; la, Tiberis) is the third-longest List of rivers of Italy, river in Italy and the longest in Central Italy, rising in the Apennine Mountains in Emilia-Romagna and flowing through Tuscany, Umbria, and Lazio, where ...

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, in making piers for the Ponte Garibaldi (1885, bridge completed 1888), it is conserved in the

Museo Nazionale Romano The National Roman Museum (Italian: ''Museo Nazionale Romano'') is a museum, with several branches in separate buildings throughout the city of Rome, Italy. It shows exhibits from the pre- and early history of Rome, with a focus on archaeological ...

in Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, Rome. The style of the sculpture reflects the school 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 ...

, perhaps the young Phidias himself, as

Jiří Frel Jiří Frel (often spelled as Jiri Frel, 1923, Dolní Újezd, Czechoslovakia — 29 April 2006, Paris) was a Czech and American archaeologist. Between 1973 and 1986 he served as a curator for the J. Paul Getty Museum. He is credited with the expan ...

suggested, and

Kenneth Clark Kenneth Mackenzie Clark, Baron Clark (13 July 1903 – 21 May 1983) was a British art historian, museum director, and broadcaster. After running two important art galleries in the 1930s and 1940s, he came to wider public notice on television ...

observed of it, "If only this figure, instead of the ''

Apollo Belvedere The ''Apollo Belvedere'' (also called the ''Belvedere Apollo, Apollo of the Belvedere'', or ''Pythian Apollo'') is a celebrated marble sculpture from Classical Antiquity. The ''Apollo'' is now thought to be an original Roman creation of Hadri ...

'', had been known to Winckelmann, his insight and beautiful gift of literary re-creation would have been better supported by the sculptural qualities of his subject." Of this marble Brian A. Sparkes reminds us that "the general effect of copies always tends towards sweetness, and so it is here." The figure, with his girlish curls, may once have held the laurel branch and bow, as he is not a '' citharoedus''. The pensive reserve of such Apollos provided the iconographical type for Hadrianic portrait heads of Antinous in the following century. Another version of the same type was recovered among the ruins of

Cherchel Cherchell (Arabic: شرشال) is a town on Algeria's Mediterranean coast, west of Algiers. It is the seat of Cherchell District in Tipaza Province. Under the names Iol and Caesarea, it was formerly a Roman colony and the capital of the k ...

, Algeria, the Roman Caesarea Mauretaniae. A copy was formerly in the

Villa Borghese gardens Villa Borghese is a landscape garden in Rome, containing a number of buildings, museums (see Galleria Borghese) and attractions. It is the third largest public park in Rome (80 hectares or 197.7 acres) after the ones of the Villa Doria Pamphili a ...

.Illustrated from an old photograph and captioned "lost" by Frel 1974:59, fig. 7.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tiber Apollo Roman copies of 5th-century BC Greek sculptures Sculptures of Apollo