“Apollon plays his lure stepping high and featly and radiance shines around him, the gleaming of his feet and close-woven vest.”
-Section from Homeric Hymn 3 to Pythian Apollo (trans. Evelyn-White).
Statuette of Apollo, Greek, from Canosa, South Italy. Ca. 300 BC.
Apollo, the Greek god of music, stands holding his kithara, a stringed harplike instrument. This terracotta statuette portrays the god wearing a cloak that drapes down his back from his left shoulder, and then wraps around his hips leaving his torso bare. Apollo’s long hair reaches down his back with a single lock falling forward over each shoulder, and he wears a radiate crown. He rests his left foot on a small stool in order to provide support for his kithara when he begins to play
The Greek colony at Canosa in South Italy was a major production center of terracotta vases and statuettes in the Hellenistic period. Greek religious beliefs created a huge demand for the terracotta figurines that were either left as gifts to the gods in sanctuaries or buried with the dead as funerary offerings. Many Canosan figurines were not meant to be free-standing but were originally attached as decorations on ornate vases. (Getty)
Courtesy of & located at The J. Paul Getty Museum, Villa Collection, Malibu, California. Via their online collections: 96.AD.266.
