The
Apollo Lyceus (,
Apollon Lukeios) type, also known as
Lycean Apollo, originating with
Praxiteles and known from many full-size statue and figurine copies as well as from 1st century BCE Athenian coinage, is a statue type of
Apollo showing the god resting on a support (a tree trunk or tripod), his right forearm touching the top of his head and his hair fixed in braids on the top of a head in a haircut typical of childhood. It is called "Lycean" not after
Lycia itself, but after its identification with a lost work described, though not attributed to a sculptor, by
Lucian as being on show in the Lyceum, one of the
gymnasia of
Athens. According to Lucian, the god leaning on a support with his bow in his left hand and his right resting on his head is shown "as if resting after long effort." Its main exemplar is the
Apollino in Florence or
Apollo Medici, in the
Uffizi,
Florence. The attribution, based on the type's "elongated proportions, elegant pose and somewhat effeminate anatomy", as
Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway characterised it, is traditionally supported on the grounds of the type's similarity to Praxiteles's
Hermes from Olympia - one replica of the
Lycian Apollo even passed as a copy of the
Hermes for a time. The comparison essentially rests on the
Apollino, whose head has proportions similar to those of the
Aphrodite of Cnidus and whose pronounced
sfumato confirms the long-held idea that it is Praxitelean in style, in spite of the many differences amomng the extant examples.