Lot Essay
The bronze figure of the sun deity Apollo was popularised as an eighteenth century mantelpiece garniture by the reductions of the Vatican's celebrated marble antiquity executed by the Rome founders Giacomo and Giovanni Zoffoli; while related Reduction Mecanique figures were produced in Paris, Naples and elsewhere in the nineteenth century. The present statuette alludes to Apollo's Parnassian role as leader of the Muses of Artistic Inspiration with its French-fashioned golden bronze plinth raised on poetic pillars that enwreathed by laurels and pearls.
