Between 1797 and 1801, Canova sculpted a statue of Perseus based on the Apollo of Belvedere, a Roman work from the 2nd century BC. C. which is found in the Vatican Museums. Perseus holds up the head of Medusa, whom he killed with the help of the goddess Minerva. When the statue was displayed in Canova’s studio, Pope Pius VII acquired it to place it in the place that the Apollo of Belvedere had occupied before Napoleon temporarily took it to France. The Metropolitan Museum’s version, commissioned shortly after by the Polish countess Valeria Tarnovska, presents some variants. Because of his elegant majesty, Canova’s Perseus became the model of neoclassical heroic beauty.