Laocoön and His Sons

This sculpture, Laocoön and His Sons, was mentioned in a book chat I was in today about Marcel Proust's Swan's Way. One of the participants brought it up as a metaphor for all the tangled serpents of time that he is weaving together. 

The statue of Laocoön and His Sons has been one of the most famous ancient sculptures ever since it was excavated in Rome in 1506. It is on display in the Museo Pio-Clementino, a part of the Vatican Museums.

It is very likely the same statue that was praised in the highest terms by the main Roman writer on art, Pliny the Elder. Pliny attributes the work, then in the palace of Emperor Titus, to three Greek sculptors from the island of Rhodes: Agesander, Athenodoros and Polydorus, but does not give a date or patron. 

In style it is considered "one of the finest examples of the Hellenistic baroque" and certainly in the Greek tradition, but it is not known whether it is an original work or a copy of an earlier sculpture, probably in bronze, or made for a Greek or Roman commission. It was probably commissioned for the home of a wealthy Roman, possibly of the Imperial family. 

The figures are near life-size and the group is a little over 2 m (6 ft 7 in) in height, showing the Trojan priest Laocoön and his sons Antiphantes and Thymbraeus being attacked by sea serpents. The group has been called "the prototypical icon of human agony" in Western art. The suffering is shown through the contorted expressions of the faces, which are matched by the struggling bodies, especially that of Laocoön himself, with every part of his body straining.

Although mostly in excellent condition for an excavated sculpture, the group is missing several parts, and analysis suggests that it was remodelled in ancient times and has undergone a number of restorations since it was excavated. 

The story of Laocoön, a Trojan priest, came from the Greek Epic Cycle on the Trojan Wars, though it is not mentioned by Homer. It had been the subject of a tragedy, now lost, by Sophocles and was mentioned by other Greek writers, though the events around the attack by the serpents vary considerably. 

This map shows the findspot of the sculpture
– near the R in "SERVIUS", east of the Sette Sale