Apollo Citharoedus of the Casa Sassi

Gossaert must have seen the antique statue of a lyre-bearing Apollo in the courtyard of the house of the Sassi family in Rome, depicted by Maarten van Heemskerck in a drawing. The 2nd century BCE basalt sculpture was later acquired by the Farnese family and is now at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli. When Gossaert saw it, the entire left and the upper part of the right arm were missing. He completed the statue, thereby emphasizing the femininity of the figure, which at the time was considered to represent Hermaphroditus, the half-man, half-woman Greek deity. Gossaert used the pose of... Mehr ...