# The Belvedere Torso [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [HEEMSKERCK, Maerten van]() - Date: 1501-1550 - Technique: Pen and ink on paper ## Commentary The Belvedere Torso is a marble fragment showing the torso and upper legs of a powerful male figure seated on a rock. It is now in the Vatican Museums and named after the Belvedere Court in the Vatican in which it was once displayed. It is signed by a Greek sculptor 'Apollonius, son of Nestor, Athenian', about whom nothing is known, and there is scholarly debate as to whether it is an original Hellenistic work from the 1st century B.C. or a Roman copy. Heemskerck's drawings of Roman ruins and Renaissance works provide us with important information about the appearance of Rome in the 1530s. When he saw the Belvedere Torso it was still lying on its back. ## Related artworks - [Annunciation]() - [Christ Being Crowned with Thorns]() - [Construction of the New St Peter's in Rome]() - [Crucifixion \(detail\)]() - [Crucifixion]() - [Crucifixion \(Triptych\)]() - [Ecce Homo Triptych]() - [Family Portrait]() - [Forum of Nerva]() - [Garden of the Casa Galli]() - [Garden of the Villa Madama]() - [Hercules of the Forum Boarium]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()