Pietro Bazzanti

Gianlorenzo Bernini's Apollo and Daphne of 1622-25, housed in the Galleria Borghese in Rome, is widely admired as one of the great masterpieces that ushered in the Baroque period in sculpture. It depicts the moment Daphne turns into a tree in a clever play on the sculptural medium. 

For the last and most ambitious of Bernini’s iconic mythological groups, the artist naturally found his inspiration in classical antiquity, turning to the celebrated Apollo Belvedere in the Vatican. The skill of Bernini’s transformation of the pose is astounding, endowing his model with greater energy and dynamism, whilst capturing the god’s shock and breathlessness at the end of the chase.

Baldinucci’s biography of Bernini describes how immediately after the marble was finished, 'such acclamation arose that all Rome rushed to view it as though it were a miracle.' Still in the late 19th and early 20th century, wealthy visitors to Italy desired their own version of Bernini's masterpiece, creating a demand for smaller-scale copies made in the marble carving centres of Florence and Carrara. The present marble appears to have passed through the renowned Bazzanti gallery in Florence.