It’s said that stone can never come to life. However, the greatest masters of sculpture have proven this wrong time and again. In their skilled hands, incredibly lifelike masterpieces are born — when you look at them you can almost believe that at any moment a gentle sigh will escape those stone lips, and those rigid eyelashes will flicker in awe.
We picked out 15 of the most exquisitely beautiful sculptures from around the world which will leave you dumbstruck by their unsurpassed realism.
Spread your wings
© Willem Havenaar
One of the ’angels’ found in the Monumental Cemetery of Staglieno in Genoa, Italy.
Galatea in Acis’ arms
© Yvan LEMEUR
The Medici Fountain sculpture in Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. August Otten, 1863.
Bathsheba
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Benjamin Victor, 2013.
Satyr and Bacchante
Jean-Jacques Pradier, 1833.
The murdered Abel
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Giovanni Duprè, 1842.
Leda and the Swan
© William (Bill) McClung
Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse, 1870. Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Nymph Salmacis
© Monica Michelle
Francois Joseph Bosio, 1826. The Louvre.
Rape of Polyxena
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Pio Fedi, 1865.
A mourning angel
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One of the statues at the Monumental Cemetery of Staglieno in Genoa.
A maid
© Yvan LEMEUR
From the Crozatier Museum, France.
The Veiled Woman
Giovanni Battista Lombardi, 1869.
Beatrice Cenci
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Harriet Hosmer, 1857.
Escapees from Pompeii
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One of the sculptures at the Ballarat Botanical Gardens Reserve.
A maid with a dog
© Maurizio
One of the sculptures at the Monumental Cemetery of Staglieno in Genoa.
Archimedes of Syracuse
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Simon Louis Bouquet, 1752. The Louvre.
