Considering the face of Apollo - preparatory sketch for a mural by Pascal-Adolphe-Jean Dagnan-Bouveret, 1901

 

This is a sketch for the face of Apollo in Dagnan-Bouveret's Apollon et les Muses au sommet du Parnasse (Apollo and the Muses at the top of Parnassus), a vast mural - a toile marouflée, actually: oil on canvas glued to the wall - which was completed in 1903 for the Amphithéâtre Richelieu of the Sorbonne.

Tête d’Apollon.

In looking for information on this piece, I also stumbled across another of Dagnan-Bouveret's preparatory studies of Apollo, the figure rather than the face.

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The Amphithéâtre Richelieu of the Sorbonne.

And early postcard reproduction of the painting.

Apollon et les Muses au sommet du Parnasse, 1903. Above, the motto Pacem summa tenent (something like "they hold the highest peace".) 

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As an example of just how confounding the internet can sometimes be, I found these three very different versions of the drawing. All are still clearly the original work, but which is closest to reality? I guess I'll never know for certain. So for my own "edition" I tried to come down somewhere in the middle.