Literature: J. Kennedy, A Description of the Antiquities and Curiosities in Wilton House, Salisbury, 1769, pl. 21.
A. Michaelis, Ancient Marbles in Great Britain, Cambridge, 1882, no. 107.
E. Simon and G. Bauchhenss, "Apollon/Apollo," in LIMC, vol. II, Zurich and Munich, 1984, no. 56e.

 

Notes: The Wilton House Apollo is a version of the so-called Anzio Apollo, recognized in nearly twenty Roman copies. The type takes its name from the example now in Palazzo Massimo in Rome, originally found at an imperial villa at Anzio, ancient Antium, on the coast southeast of Rome. The complete figure is depicted nude, leaning on a now-missing attribute with his right elbow, in a pose reminiscent, in reverse, of Praxiteles' Apollo Sauroktonos. For the full figure in Rome see no. 56 in Simon and Bauchhenss, "Apollon/Apollo," in LIMC.

Thomas Herbert, 8th Earl of Pembroke, (1654-1732), amassed one of the premier collections of ancient art, which he displayed at his stately home, Wilton House, in Wiltshire. A large part of his collection was acquired from the gallery of Arundel House when it was broken up in 1678. He was later able to acquire part of the Mazarin collection in Paris in the 1720s, much of which had been collected in Rome. Around the same time he bought individual pieces, including parts of the Giustiniani collection in Rome in 1720, and the Valletta collection in Naples, which was bought by an English doctor and then sold again, with the Earl buying part. Michaelis (op. cit., p. 691) suggests that this Apollo was from Mazarin collection. When Kennedy published his catalog of the collection in 1769, when Michaelis saw it in the 1870s, and when it was sold in 1961, the head was attached to a partially-draped bust.

 

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