Apollo Sauroktonos (Lizard-Slayer)
Apollo Sauroktonos (Lizard-Slayer), attributed to Praxiteles (Greek, c. 400BC - c. 330BC) probably 350-275 BC; possibly 275 BC-300 AD
This life-size bronze statue of the Apollo Sauroktonos may be the statue the Roman author Pliny the Elder saw in the 1st century ad. The complete sculpture most likely showed the young god pulling back a slender laurel tree with his raised left hand, while holding an arrow at waist level with his right, posed to strike the lizard creeping up the tree. Two Roman marble copies preserve the composition, one in the Louvre (see photo), the other in the Vatican. Here the tree, the right arm from above the elbow, and the left arm from the shoulder are missing. The left hand and part of the forearm, as well as the lizard survive, detached from the figural group (see adjacent case). The flat bronze base is not ancient, dating to about the 17th to the 19th century. The museum's sculpture is the only known life-size bronze version of the Apollo Sauroktonos. Technical features-such as the way the sculpture was cast and repaired in antiquity, the copper inlays of the lips and nipples, and the stone insert for the right eye (the left is a restoration)-are consistent with a date in the Late Classical period (about 370-330 bc). However, because bronzecasting techniques changed so little, it may have been possible to produce such a work in the subsequent Hellenistic or Roman periods. The finest large Classical Greek statues were bronzes, but few have survived. If this sculpture is a product of Praxiteles' workshop, it is the only large Greek bronze statue that can be attributed to a Greek sculptor. Praxiteles ranks with Phidias, Polyclitus, and Lysippus as one of the greatest sculptors of Classical Greece. He was widely popular in his day (active about 380/70-330/25 bc), and his fame has endured to the present day. His Aphrodite of Cnidus (about 350/40 bc) introduced the nude female figure to Western art. The Apollo Sauroktonos is thought to have been created by Praxiteles about 350 bc. An androgynous sensuality and languid and gracefully curved poses are hallmarks of his style, seen in several Roman copies of lost Praxitelean originals. 
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