Apollo Belvedere
workshop of Matthew Brettingham the Younger (1725 - 1803)
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
circa 1758
Materials
Painted plaster
Measurements
2160 x 1760 mm
Place of origin
London
Order this imageCollection
Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire
NT 109006
Summary
Painted plaster, the Apollo Belvedere, possibly cast by Bartolomeo Mattevali on behalf of Matthew Brettingham (1724-1803), cast c. 1758. A full-length plaster cast painted white of the Apollo Belvedere, after the antique marble in The Vatican, Rome. The god Apollo as an archer, having shot an arrow from his bow. Turned to proper left, he is nude with the exception of sandals and a chlamys fastened over his proper right shoulder and draped over his proper left arm. The left arm is extended, the hand clasping onto the riser of a bow, although the limbs of the bow are missing, as they are on the antique statue. Apollo's quiver of arrows is slung across his proper right shoulder. A serpent slithers up the trunk of a tree behind him. The statue is mounted on a painted plaster base. The cast is after a revered Roman marble statue of the Hadrianic period housed in the Vatican Museums, Rome. The marble is considered to be copy of a lost bronze statue by the 4th century Attic sculptor Leochares. It was first recorded in 1509 in the gardens of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere (Pope Julius II, 1503-13) and by 1511 it was installed in the Cortile del Belvedere in the Vatican Palace (see Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 148 - 51, no. 8, fig. 77).
Full description
Nathaniel Curzon (1726-1804) acquired this cast of the Apollo Belvedere from Matthew Brettingham (1725-1803), an architect who primarily dealt in antiquities and casts for the British aristocracy. The cast is recorded as 'Apollo Belvedere' in a handwritten inventory of sculpture and statuary produced by Curzon himself in around 1760 (MS, Kedleston Archive). It is recorded again on the verso of that inventory, under the subheading 'Hall Statues' (MS, Kedleston Archives). The Apollo Belvedere was installed alongside its pendant, a cast of the Meleager (NT 109007), in the Marble Hall and has remained there since (see 'Catalogue of the pictures, statues, &c. at Kedleston', 1758 and 1769, pp. 1 and 7 respectively). During his seven-year stint in Rome (1747-54) Brettingham not only dealt in casts and antiquities - furnishing the Earl of Leicester, for example, with casts and marble statues for Holkham - but also commissioned actual moulds to be taken from famous Roman statues. The idea was that casts could then be made to order when he returned to London. The Apollo Belvedere was one of twelve moulds of antique statues Brettingham commissioned, at considerable trouble and expense, owed to its enormous popularity (Kenworthy-Browne 1983: pp. 82, 99, 100). In Brettingham's Rome Account Book, his ledger of statues dealt, casts made, bought and sold when he was in Italy, records for 1754 show that a 'Mould of ye Apollo di Belveder' was acquired along with its pendant, 'ye Meleager di Pichini' (Kenworthy-Browne 1983, p.99). Unfortunately the moulds were not the success Brettingham had hoped. Despite bringing back to London an Italian craftsman (Bartolomeo Mattevali) specifically for the job of casting from them, few actually sold. In addition to the Kedleston Apollo, casts of that statue were also sold to the Duke of Richmond for £20 (1756), the Earl of Leicester and the Earl of Egremont (Petworth). Alice Rylance-Watson March 2019
Provenance
Purchased by Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Baron Scarsdale (1726-1804), from Matthew Brettingham the Younger (1725-1803) c. 1758; identifiable in the 'Catalogue of the pictures, statues, &c. at Kedleston' of 1758 (Hall, p. 1), of 1769 (Hall, p. 7, and 1861 (Hall, p. 7); purchased with part of the contents of Kedleston with the aid of the National Heritage Memorial Fund in 1987 when the house and park were given to the National Trust by Francis Curzon, 3rd Viscount Scarsdale (1924-2000).
Credit line
Kedleston Hall, The Scarsdale Collection (acquired with the help of the National Heritage Memorial Fund and transferred to the National Trust in 1987)
Makers and roles
workshop of Matthew Brettingham the Younger (1725 - 1803), dealer possibly Bartolomeo Mattevali, caster
References
Haskell and Penny 1981: Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique, The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500 - 1900, New Haven and London, 1981, pp. 148-51, no. 8, fig. 77. Kenworthy-Browne 1983: John Kenworthy-Browne, 'Matthew Brettingham's Rome Account Book 1747-1754', The Volume of the Walpole Society, vol.49 (1983), pp.37-132, pp. 82, 99, 100. 104. Kenworthy-Browne 1993: John Kenworthy-Browne, ‘Designing around the statues. Matthew Brettingham’s casts at Kedleston’, Apollo, April 1993, pp.248-252