Cast from the original (from 1563) housed at the Museo Pio Clementino. Restorations have been made to Laocoon's extended arm, a matter of significant debate amongst academics. Acquired in 1898.


"The statue of Laocoön and His Sons, also called the Laocoön Group(Italian: Gruppo del Laocoonte), has been one of the most famous ancient sculptures since it was excavated in Rome in 1506 and put on public display in the Vatican Museums,^[2] where it remains today. The statue is very likely the same one that was praised in the highest terms by Pliny the Elder, the main Roman writer on art.^[3] The figures in the statue are nearly life-sized, with the entire group measuring just over 2 m (6 ft 7 in) in height. The sculpture depicts the Trojan priest Laocoön and his sons Antiphantes and Thymbraeus being attacked by sea serpents.^[1]



The Laocoön Group has been called "the prototypical icon of human agony" in Western art.^[4] Unlike the agony often portrayed in Christian art depicting the Passion of Jesus and martyrs, the suffering shown in this statue offers no redemptive power or reward.^[5] The agony is conveyed through the contorted expressions on the faces, particularly Laocoön's bulging eyebrows, which were noted by Dr. Guillaume-Benjamin Duchenne as physiologically impossible.^[6] These expressions are mirrored in the struggling bodies, especially Laocoön's, with every part of his body shown straining."

- content and image source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laoco%C3%B6n_and_His_Sons