Attributed to Bartolomeo Passarotti (Bologna 1529-1592)

This drawing is after the Apollo Belvedere, the torso of a nude statue thought to be a Roman copy after a lost Hellenistic bronze. It is not known where the statue was discovered, but in the late 1490s it was recorded as being in the garden of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere at San Pietro in Vincoli. When he became Pope in 1503 the statue was moved to the newly built Cortile del Belvedere at the Vatican. Thought by Giorgio Vasari to provide 'the lessons of ease and grace in rendering the human figure' (P. Bober and R. Rubinstein, Renaissance Artists and Antique Sculpture, London, 1986, p. 71, no. 28) it has inspired many artists including Leonardo, Raphael and Michelangelo.