Head of the Apollo Belvedere

František Tkadlík started his studies at the Prague Academy of drawing in March 1803 at the age of sixteen. At that time, initial studies at the Prague Academy consisted of making copies of selected models, which were intended to fix in the students’ minds chosen concepts from the aesthetic canon. These led to the students later creating their original compositions, based on the experience they had gained making copies combined with their independent studies of the human body - nude figures. The works most often given to the students to copy, whether in the form of sample drawings or plaster cast reproductions, consisted of important works of classical sculpture: the Apollo Belvedere, Laocoon, and Ilioneus. These examples were used to pass on to the students the principles of contemporary academic Neoclassicism, founded on classical proportions.