A living heart beats under the marble skin

They say a stone can't come to life. But the great masters of their craft have long proved that this is not the case. Unsurpassed masterpieces are born in their sensitive hands — you look at them, and it seems that a quiet sigh is about to be heard and your eyelashes will tremble.

We have collected for you sculptures from all over the world, striking in their beauty and realism.

1. Spread your wings (© Willem Havenaar)

One of the angels of the cemetery of Staglieno in Genoa.

2. Galatea in the hands of Acis (© Yvan LEMEUR)

Sculpture of the Medici Fountain in the Luxembourg Garden in Paris. Auguste Otten, 1863.

3. Bathsheba (© benvictor)

Benjamin Victor, 2013.

4. The Satyr and the Bacchante

Jean Jacques Pradier, 1833.

5. The lost Abel

Giovanni Dupre, 1842.

6. Leda and the Swan (© William (Bill) McClung)

Albert-Ernest Carrie-Bellez, 1870. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

7. Nymph Salmakis (© Monica Michelle)

Francois Joseph Bosio, 1826. The Louvre.

8. The Abduction of Polyxena

Pio Fedi, 1865.

9. The Grieving Angel

One of the monuments of the Staglieno Cemetery in Genoa.

10. The Girl (© Yvan LEMEUR)

Crozatier Museum.

11. A woman in a veil

Giovanni Batista Lombardi, 1869.

12. Beatrice Cenci

Harriet Hosmer, 1857.

13. Fleeing from Pompeii (© raaen99)

One of the monuments of the Ballarat Botanical Garden.

14. A girl with a dog (© Maurizio)

Sculpture from the cemetery of Staglieno in Genoa.

15. Archimedes (© sissydude)

Simon Louis Bouquet, 1752. The Louvre.