Paris (AFP)

The Louvre launched Tuesday its annual campaign "All Patrons", sponsored by the host and photographer Nikos Aliagas, to acquire a delicate bronze statue, "Appolon citharède" remarkably preserved under the ashes of the eruption of Vesuvius Pompeii.

This is the tenth fundraising campaign organized by the largest museum in the world, in line with its acquisition policy, which aims to make previously masterpieces accessible to the general public.

This graceful statue, dated 2nd or 1st centuries BC, represents androgynous Appolon, with loops falling on either side of the neck. The deity held in his left hand a zither which has disappeared.

The Louvre will be able to acquire it if it manages to gather 6.7 million euros. The work is declared "national treasure" and donors are encouraged by tax deductions. More than half of the sum (3.5 million euros) is already pledged by the patronage of the Society of Friends of the Louvre.

The call for donations aims to collect from the public 800,000 euros before February 28.

Near the window where it sits in majesty, just a few meters from the staircase leading to the Victory of Samothrace, a urn and a contactless payment terminal were installed to encourage visitors to participate in the campaign, also accessible in line: donate.louvre.fr.

The Louvre has chosen a television man, Nikos Aliagas, also a photographer, to give more publicity to this campaign.

He says he photographed the Appolon first with fear, "in the dim light".

"This work has resisted our vanity, our wars and our natural disasters, it reminds us of our finitude, I have imagined the breath, and perhaps the suffering of the scuptor, whether Greek or Roman, who has created this androgynous being, at the crossroads in his femininity and masculinity ".

This statue was to be worshiped in a villa in this region of rich resorts, when it disappeared in the eruption of 79 AD. She lost her inlaid eyes and her original colors, but her state of preservation is excellent.

She escaped the redesign of many statues of Pompeii, redesign that allowed to recover the metal. She had been in private hands for nearly a century.

Since 2010, the "All Patrons" campaigns have been followed by more than 23,000 donors, who according to Jean-Luc Martinez, president and CEO of the Louvre, have paid an average of 50 euros, 60% of contributors giving several times.

For example, they made it possible to supplement the funds for the acquisition of Lucas Cranach's Three Graces, François Premier's Book of Hours, to perfect the restoration of the Carrousel Arch or the Victory of Samothrace, or to reconstitute the Mastaba of Akhethetep.

© 2019 AFP