Apollo and Daphne

In his Metamorphosis, Ovid tells of the nymph Daphne, who eluded the desires of the sun god Apollo by turning herself into a laurel tree (Greek daphne, laurel). The two-figure group depicts the beginning of this transformation. In travel reports from the Baroque period, the virtuoso piece of carving was already considered a major work of the Viennese imperial treasury.