Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge acquires rare bronze masterpiece

The Apollo Belvedere by Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi,, can be seen in gallery seven

A rare bronze masterpiece has been gifted to the nation and will go on show at a Cambridge museum.

The Apollo Belvedere, by Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi, dates from 1520-22 and is thought to be one of the "finest Italian Renaissance bronzes ever made".

The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge said the piece will become the "lynchpin of our sculpture collection".

A spokesman added: "It is difficult to exaggerate the significance and rarity of the statuette."

The bronze was acquired from the collection of philanthropists Cecil and Hilda Lewis, through the Arts Council's Acceptance in Lieu (AiL) scheme, which allows works of art to be gifted to the nation in lieu of inheritance tax - in this case £10.5m.

The decorative statue is 16.25in (41cm) high and sits on a modern circular wood base

Sculptor Bonacolsi, nicknamed Antico, (c. 1460-1528) is considered one of the most important sculptors and bronze-asters of the early Italian Renaissance.

The artist pioneered the use of the "lost-wax process" to produce bronze sculptures made in multiples.

'Extraordinary novelty'

Michael Clarke, chair of the AiL panel, said the "exceptionally fine parcel-gilt bronze figure" would "greatly enhance the Fitzwilliam's outstanding sculpture collection".

The Apollo Belvedere will join the Boscawen collection of 56 bronzes bequeathed to the Fitzwilliam Museum by Lt Col Mildmay Thomas Boscawen, an alumnus of Trinity College, Cambridge who died in 1958.

Luke Syson, director and Marlay Curator of the Fitzwilliam Museum, described the work as the "new lynchpin of our sculpture collection, perhaps the most quintessentially Renaissance work we own."

"The beautiful male nude is now such an expected ingredient within museum collections that we almost take them for granted," he added.

"The acquisition of Antico's miniaturised, part-gilded bronze version of the Apollo Belvedere reminds us that in Renaissance Italy they were still an extraordinary novelty."