Late last week, vandals beheaded a well-known statue on the grounds of the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco. The museum’s curators were shocked at first, but now they just want the pieces returned so they can be reattached to the statue.
Known as “The Laocoon Group”, the statue depicts the Greek god Laocoon and his two sons in an argument with a horde of snakes sent by Athena and Poseidon for trying to warn the Trojans about the wooden horse trick , which led to the fall of Troy. It was defaced in three places – the heads of the two sons were completely removed and part of Laocoon’s leg was also damaged, according to ABC7. The statue is to the left of the museum’s main entrance, near the bronze statue of Joan of Arc by Anna Hyatt Huntington.
“It’s really sad,” Martin Chapman, Curator of the European Legion of Honor for Art and Sculpture, told ABC7. “This is a loss to the museum and the people of San Francisco as this is a work of art that was vandalized.”
Greek tragedy. 90 year old marble sculpture vandalized at @legionofhonor museum. The curators hope that missing pieces can be returned or salvaged. pic.twitter.com/vjSCzXiWSC
— Cornell Barnard (@CornellBarnard) December 4, 2021
Although not an original, it is a reproduction of the same statue discovered in Federico De Fredis’ vineyards in 1506 and kept in the Vatican. The original sculpture dates from 200 BC. In his book The Natural History, the Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder suggests that the sculpture was made by Agesander, Polydorus and Athenodorus. The marble replica of the Legion of Honor was given to the museum in 1930, although the museum’s website does not say who created it.
Located in Lincoln Park, the California Palace of the Legion of Honor is part of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the city’s largest public arts institution. The museum houses art from over 4,000 years of history.
Although there was no surveillance footage of the incident, the SFPD is investigating the crime. Museum employees hope that a tip from the public will also help with the search.
“What we would like to do,” Chapman said, “is recover the missing pieces that matter the most and restore the object.”
Editor’s Note: This story was updated at 9:00am on December 10 to correct the location of the Legion of Honour.
