Apollo and Daphne

By virtue of its subject, Apollo and Daphne is the most dynamic among Tacca's small-scale bronze compositions. As recounted in Ovid's Metamorphoses, having provoked the god of Love, Apollo was shot by one of Cupid's arrows and fell passionately in love with the woodland nymph Daphne. Daphne had in turn been shot by another of Cupid's arrows, resulting in a profound hatred for Apollo. Having escaped the amorous god's advances and sworn to a life of virginity, Daphne was eventually caught by Apollo (with Cupid's help) and begged her father, the river god Peneus, to change her form and save her from her plight. Before Apollo could ultimately seize her, Daphne was turned into a laurel tree.

The rousing climax of the myth provided ample inspiration for Baroque artists, most famously Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Tacca's bronze captures the figures mid-flight, Apollo running after Daphne as her toes grow into roots and merge with the ground below. Apollo eagerly reaches forward with his right arm, his left hand holding a now-lost bow, while Daphne lunges forward with both arms, caught in an alarmed, open-mouthed expression.

Ferdinando Tacca's authorship of a series of bronze groups representing subjects from Ovid's Metamorphoses and Ariosto's epic poem, Orlando Furioso, was established based on comparisons with secured works, in particular the relief depicting The Martyrdom of St Stephen in Santo Stefano al Ponte, Florence.

While most of Tacca's two-figure models exist in a number of surviving casts, Apollo and Daphne has so far been known for certain in only a single version. What must be considered a prime cast is now in the Musée du Louvre.