The Apollo Belvedere is a Roman copy of a Greek original attributed to Leochares.
The surviving marble statue was probably made around 120–140 CE, while the lost Greek bronze original is generally dated to about 330–320 BCE. Leochares was an important Greek sculptor of the Late Classical period, and the attribution is based largely on ancient literary evidence and stylistic comparison rather than a surviving signature.
Apollo is shown as an archer who has just released an arrow. The precise mythological episode is uncertain: interpretations include Apollo’s defeat of Python at Delphi, his attack on the giant Tityos, or an episode involving the Niobids. His twisting contrapposto pose gives the figure a sense of immediate movement.
Rediscovered in central Italy in the late 15th century, the statue became a major Renaissance model. Pope Julius II moved it to the Vatican’s Belvedere complex in 1511, giving it the name by which it is known. Neoclassical artists later celebrated it as an ideal of beauty, although modern criticism is more cautious about its fame and artistic perfection.