Apollo rising from the water on the sun chariot

Thanks to an exceptional authorization obtained from the authorities in early 2008, a copy of this work was able to be made, for the first time since the work was created, by a team of sculptors led by a former restorer at the Palace of Versailles whose talent enabled him to produce, among other things, one of the tables for wild game that, since 1981, decorate the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace.

Initially workshop supervisor at the Louvre Museum, Gilles Perrault worked on the restoration of sculptures in the Palace of Versailles. He left the public service in 1984 after years perfecting his skills in French seventeenth and eighteenth century art. This copy was created in the purest spirit of the late seventeenth century, in marble of Carrare from Franco Cervietti’s workshop. For four years, starting in 2008 and after initial measurements were taken by engineers, a succession of modellers, sculptors and founders have worked to reproduce this masterpiece of French art. The following photographs enable, better than any words, an appreciation of the quality of this reproduction in marble.