Apollo and Daphne

At the very instant the fleeing nymph Daphne is changing into a laurel tree, Bernini freezes the transformation in marble: her fingers sprout leaves, bark sheathes her thigh, her toes take root, and her cry still hangs open as Apollo, in full stride, lays a hand on a body already turning to wood (Ovid). Carved when the sculptor was in his mid-twenties for the Galleria Borghese, where it remains, the group is a miracle of virtuosity - hair and foliage cut paper-thin, motion and metamorphosis caught at the impossible turning point between flesh and tree.