Orpheus and Eurydice

This marble sculpture has an erotically charged subject. The smooth naked bodies of a man and woman emerge from a cleft in rough rock. Orpheus’s story, taken from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, enjoyed renewed popularity at the end of the nineteenth century.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 7 minutes):

Cristoph Willibald Gluck: Orfeo, Act I, Orpheus’ aria in G Major