The Apollo Lyceus ( el, Ἀπόλλων Λύκειος, ''Apollōn Lukeios'') type, also known as Lycean Apollo, originating with

Praxiteles Praxiteles (; el, Πραξιτέλης) of Athens, the son of Cephisodotus the Elder, was the most renowned of the Attica sculptors of the 4th century BC. He was the first to sculpt the nude female form in a life-size statue. While no indubita ...

and known from many full-size statue and figurine copies as well as from 1st century BCE Athenian coinage, is a statue type 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= ...

showing the god resting on a support (a tree trunk or tripod), his right forearm touching the top of his head and his hair fixed in braids on the top of a head in a haircut typical of childhood. It is called "Lycean" not after

Lycia Lycia ( Lycian: 𐊗𐊕𐊐𐊎𐊆𐊖 ''Trm̃mis''; el, Λυκία, ; tr, Likya) was a state or nationality that flourished in Anatolia from 15–14th centuries BC (as Lukka) to 546 BC. It bordered the Mediterranean Sea in what is ...

itself, but after its identification with a lost work described, though not attributed to a sculptor, by

Lucian Lucian of Samosata, '; la, Lucianus Samosatensis ( 125 – after 180) was a Hellenized Syrian satirist, rhetorician and pamphleteer who is best known for his characteristic tongue-in-cheek style, with which he frequently ridiculed supersti ...

as being on show in the

Lyceum The lyceum is a category of educational institution defined within the education system of many countries, mainly in Europe. The definition varies among countries; usually it is a type of secondary school. Generally in that type of school the t ...

, one of the gymnasia of

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates a ...

. According to Lucian, the god leaning on a support with his bow in his left hand and his right resting on his head is shown "as if resting after long effort." Its main exemplar is the '' Apollino'' in Florence or ''Apollo Medici'', in the

Uffizi The Uffizi Gallery (; it, Galleria degli Uffizi, italic=no, ) is a prominent art museum located adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria in the Historic Centre of Florence in the region of Tuscany, Italy. One of the most important Italian museums ...

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...

. The attribution, based on the type's "elongated proportions, elegant pose and somewhat effeminate anatomy", as

Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway (born 1929 in Chieti) is an Italian archaeologist and specialist in ancient Greek sculpture. Life The daughter of an Italian officer, she spent her childhood in Ethiopia and Eritrea, where her father was stationed. Afte ...

characterised it, is traditionally supported on the grounds of the type's similarity to Praxiteles's ''

Hermes Hermes (; grc-gre, Ἑρμῆς) is an Olympian deity in ancient Greek religion and mythology. Hermes is considered the herald of the gods. He is also considered the protector of human heralds, travellers, thieves, merchants, and orat ...

'' from Olympia - one replica of the ''Lycian Apollo'' even passed as a copy of the ''Hermes'' for a time. The comparison essentially rests on the ''Apollino'', whose head has proportions similar to those of the

Aphrodite of Cnidus The Aphrodite of Knidos (or Cnidus) was an Ancient Greek sculpture of the goddess Aphrodite created by Praxiteles of Athens around the 4th century BC. It is one of the first life-sized representations of the nude female form in Greek history, d ...

and whose pronounced ''

sfumato Sfumato (, ) is a painting technique for softening the transition between colours, mimicking an area beyond what the human eye is focusing on, or the out-of-focus plane. It is one of the canonical painting modes of the Renaissance. Leonardo da ...

'' confirms the long-held idea that it is Praxitelean in style, in spite of the many differences among the extant examples. Nevertheless, most exemplars of this type exhibit a pronounced musculature which does not resemble masculine types normally attributed to Praxiteles - it has further been proposed that it is a work of his contemporary

Euphranor AGMA Apollon Patroos Euphranor. Euphranor of Corinth (middle of the 4th century BC) was a Greek artist who excelled both as a sculptor and as a painter. Pliny the Elder provides a list of his works including a cavalry battle, a Theseus, and th ...

, or of a 2nd-century BCE work The ''Apollino'', for its part, would thus be an eclectic creation from the Roman era, mixing several styles from the " second classicism" (i.e. from the 4th century BC). The famous pose with the arm resting on the head was so thoroughly identified with Apollo that it was used for the Hadrianic sculpture of

Antinous Antinous, also called Antinoös, (; grc-gre, Ἀντίνοος; 27 November – before 30 October 130) was a Greek youth from Bithynia and a favourite and probable lover of the Roman emperor Hadrian. Following his premature death before his ...

as Apollo at

Leptis Magna Leptis or Lepcis Magna, also known by other names in antiquity, was a prominent city of the Carthaginian Empire and Roman Libya at the mouth of the Wadi Lebda in the Mediterranean. Originally a 7th-centuryBC Phoenician foundation, it was great ...

. With the Hellenistic and Roman depictions of a youthful

Dionysus In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, myth, Dionysus (; grc, wikt:Διόνυσος, Διόνυσος ) is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstas ...

typologically not always distinguishable from Apollo, the pose seems to have been inherited by Dionysus, as in the 2nd century CE

Ludovisi Dionysus The over-lifesize marble ''Dionysus with Panther and Satyr'' in the Palazzo Altemps, Rome, is a Roman work of the 2nd century AD, found in the 16th century on the Quirinal Hill at the time foundations were being dug for Palazzo Mattei at Quattro ...

, a Roman sculpture. The pose is also used in the

Amazon statue types Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology co ...

, and its long-establishedRidgway 1974 . conventional expression of lassitude identified

Sleeping Ariadne The '' Sleeping Ariadne'', housed in the Vatican Museums in Vatican City, is a Roman Hadrianic copy of a Hellenistic sculpture of the Pergamene school of the 2nd century BC, and is one of the most renowned sculptures of Antiquity. The reclining f ...

as well.

References

{{Praxiteles Sculptures of Apollo Sculptures by Praxiteles Epithets of Apollo