Belvedere Torso

The torso from the Belvedere is a fragment of an ancient statue of a seated figure. At first believed to be showing Heracles, this has been increasingly contested after more thorough research into the statue's details. The torso, which probably dates back to the first century BC, has been in the Vatican Museums since the 1530s. Named after its original location, the Belvedere courtyard of the Vatican, the statue has impressed artists such as Maarten van Heemskerck, Michelangelo, Peter Paul Rubens and Francisco de Goya, who were captivated by the sculpture's expressive power. The torso plays a significant role both in the art history of Antiquity and of the Renaissance.

Belvedere Torso, marble, 159 cm, artist: Apollonios, photographer: sailko; source: Musei Vaticani (statue), Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Torso_del_belvedere,_forse_aiace_telamonio_che_medita_suicidio,_I_sec._ac._di_apollonios,_forse_da_bronzo_greco_del_200-150_ac._ca_01.JPG,  Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/.