Apollo taught to the humans the art of healing and archery. Phoebe, his grandmother, gave the oracular shrine of Delphi to Apollo as a birthday gift. Themis inspired him to be the oracular voice of Delphi thereon. Later, with his bow and arrows that he had received from Hephaestus, Apollo went in search of the chthonic dragon Python, which lived in Delphi beside the Castalian Spring, and was a terror to the people. Hera had sent this serpent to hunt the pregnant Leto to her death across the world. To avenge the trouble given to his mother, Apollo killed Python in
Woman Bitten by a Serpent Woman Bitten by a Serpent Woman Bitten by a Serpent is an 1847 marble sculpture by Auguste Clésinger (1814-1883), now in the musée d'Orsay in Paris. It was commissioned by the industrialist Alfred Mosselman and first exhibited in the Paris Salon in 1847, where it and Thomas Couture's "The Romans in their Decadence" were the most commented-upon works. Clésinger had modelled his work on a life-cast of the Mossellman's mistress, the demi-mondaine Apollonie Sabatier (1822-1890), later Charles Baudelaire's muse. The direct use of a life cast as the basis for a sculpture was highly controversial in the 19th century, particularly