THE BELVEDERE TORSO: MAN OR BEAST?
THE BELVEDERE TORSO: MAN OR BEAST? The Belvedere Torso was once one of the most famous sculptures in the world, despite being so badly-damaged that it is missing its head, both arms and both lower legs. It was held in such high esteem that the 1816 Parliamentary Select Committee, established to determine how much the British Museum should pay Lord Elgin for the Parthenon Marbles (the ‘Elgin Marbles’), asked its expert witnesses whether the sculptures from the Parthenon were in the same league as acknowledged masterpieces, like the Apollo Belvedere , the Belvedere Torso and the Laocoön ? Plaster cast of the Belvedere Torso in the Ashmolean Cast Gallery, Oxford In the 18 th century this sculpture was so famous that art historians and Romantic poets could simply refer to it as ‘the Torso ’ or ‘le Torse’ (always with a capital T), confident that their readers would be familiar with it through various media: engravings, drawings, paintings or plaster casts.