LATE 18TH 19TH CENTURY

The story of Laocoön from the Aeneid tells how Laocoön, a Trojan priest, was killed after attempting to expose the ruse of the Trojan Horse by striking it with a spear. The scene shows the Trojan priest Laocoön and his sons Antiphantes and Thymbraeus being strangled by sea serpents, sent either by Apollo or Poseidon, as punishment. The Antique version of Laocoön and His Sons, also called the Laocoön Group, is a monumental marble figure group now in the Vatican Museums, attributed by Pliny the Elder to three sculptors from the island of Rhodes.