Apollo and Daphne, after Lorenzo Bernini’s Marble Group in the Galleria Borghese, Rome

Jean-Etienne Liotard (1702-1789), pastel on paper, 1736

Liotard has here copied another famous marble sculpture. As well as providing a landscape and stormy sky, he has added the river god Peneus, who changed the nymph into a laurel tree to prevent her being ravished by Apollo. Liotard’s attempts to animate marble sculptures are an idiosyncratic contribution to the paragone, the long-running debate as to the relative superiority of painting and sculpture.

  • Artwork typedrawing, pastel
  • Object numberSK-A-1195
  • Dimensionsheight 66.2 cm x width 51.2 cm, weight 8.6 kg
  • Physical characteristicspastel op papier