Apollo

This statuette representing Apollo is one of Royer's earliest known works, almost certainly the Apollo exhibited in Malines in 1818 (at the bi-annual exhibition of Contemporary Artists, Academie, Malines), the year before the artist left for Paris. The subject is from classical myth, the figure posed in a contraposto stance, and dressed in a generalised classical costume, but close inspection reveals distinctive features, such as the stubble on the face, the elaborate thongs on the sandals, and even traces of the sculptor's fingerprint on the chest.

The figure was probably an academic piece, and was viewed as a finished work in its own right.

Louis Royer was one of the most important Belgian sculptors of the first half of the nineteenth century, and a leading exponent of neo-classicism.