Originale e copia

Speranza

Today we know that the Laocoonte, il Torso (d'Ercole) del Belvedere, and others are copies of Greek sculpture of the Hellenistic period, not originals.

The Roman copying of Greek sculpture and the making of plaster casts is not a creation of the Renaissance.

The Romans held Greek sculpture in high regard and copied freely.

• Site of Baiae excavations

During the 1950s archaeological excavation in the area around Napoli, at Baiae, revealed the remains of a 1st century AD manufacturer of plaster casts of Greek statues for wealthy Roman patrons.

Many of the moulds found at Baiae were from statues that we still regard highly today.

• Apollo Belvedere

A famous statue, often copied, is the marble L'Apollo del Belvedere.

Recorded in Rome in the 1490s, it was restored in the 1530s.

Most copies preserve the 16th century left forearm and left hand, as does this one at Fontanebleau.

A cast of the left hand was found at Baiae in the 1950s.

It was probably moulded from the original statue which the sculptor Leochares made in bronze in the later 4th century BC.

The restoration of antique statues is a tradition that began in the early Renaissance and continued into the 19th century.

Canova may have declined to restore the marbles Lord Elgin brought from the Parthenon, but Bertel Thorvaldsen thought his restorations would improve the marbles from Aegina which became the pride of Klenze's Glypytothek in Munich.

This small plaster model in Oxford of the temple's west pediment shows the 19th century restorations.

The first model was made for the German archaeologist Adolf Furtwängler in the 1880s.

• Plaster model of the Aegina temple's west pediment in Oxford

• Plaster casts of figures from the east pediment of the temple at Aegina in Oxford

Twentieth-century classical archaeologists tended to take a purist approach.

 Just as Thorvaldsen's restorations have been removed from the marbles in Munich.

Sir John Beazley routinely removed post-antique restorations from the plaster casts in Oxford.

He amputated the 16th century arm of Apollo Belvedere and bisected the restored hind of Artemis of Versailles.
 

• Cast of Apollo Belvedere in Oxford

• Cast of Artemis of Versailles in Oxford

Oxford acquired both casts in the 1820s, at the same time as the Borghese Warrior.

They were given to decorate the interior of James Gibbs's Radcliffe Library which opened in 1749.

In this early 19th century engraving the casts can be seen in the rotunda.

Apollo has his restored left arm and Artemis has her hind.

To art historians these restorations are important.

Apollo's had been carried out in the 1530s, Artemis's in 1605.

To most classical archaeologists restorations,
even by famous sculptors, are a corruption of the original.

• Radcliffe Library

• Interior of the Radcliffe Library

Post-antique restorations that were recorded, such as Barthélemy Prieur's of Artemis for the outdoor fountain at Fontainebleau, have often been removed in academic cast collections.

But many restorations were not recorded.

Forgotten, they have usually been retained.

Michelangelo BUONARROTI, for example, has been credited, probably wrongly, with the restoration of the head and arms of the Dancing Faun, one of the most famous statues in the Tribuna of the Uffizi, seen here below in Zoffany's famous painting.

Regularly paired with Venus de'Medici, whose arms were also restored in the 17th century, the two usually retain their post-antique restorations.

• The Tribuna of the Uffizi by Zoffany