A life size, full-length marble youthful male figure, naked except for a fig leaf and barefoot, standing with his weight on his right leg, the left bent at the knee with the left heel raised from the ground. His head, with long curling hair bound by a plain chaplet, is turned sharply to the left. He leans with his left hand on top of a draped tree stump. In his right hand he holds a plain circular discus. On an integral rounded marble base. Incised at the foot of the tree trunk.

According to Ovid, Hyacinthus, a mythical Spartan prince beloved of Apollo, was killed by a discus thrown by the god as they competed together. It had been misdirected by the jealous Zephyrus. Where the boy's blood fell, hyacinth flowers sprang from the ground.

Macdonald's model was complete by 1841 when Hawks le Grice visited his studio. Lawrence Macdonald lived and worked in Rome between 1822 and 1826. During this period he became founding member of the British Academy of Arts in Rome and a prominent figure, together with John Gibson and Richard James Wyatt, in the group of British neo-classical artists working there. Although he established himself as a sculptor of bust portraits, his main interest was in idealised neo-classical statuary, of which this full-length marble of Hyacinthus is an example. He returned to Rome in 1832 where he settled for the rest of life.

Text adapted from Sculpture in the Collection of His Majesty The King (2025).