Charles Le Brun, French, 1619-1690
Title: Apollo Taking Leave of Tethis
Date: c.1650
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
102 x 132 cm
Credit Line: Presented, 1977
Object Number: NGI.4197
ProvenanceJames Adam & Sons, Dublin, 1946/7; Private Collection; presented, Private Collection, 1977
Exhibition HistoryLe Classicisme Francais, masterpieces of 17th century painting, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 30 April - 9 June 1985
Von Poussin bis Monet. Die Farben Frankreichs, Bucerius Kunst Forum, Hamburg, 10 October 2015 - 17 January 2016
Von Poussin bis Monet. Die Farben Frankreichs, Bucerius Kunst Forum, Hamburg, 10 October 2015 - 17 January 2016
Label TextApollo leaves the beautiful Thetis at dawn, to ride the chariot of the sun across the sky. She was a Nereid, the wife of Peleus and mother of Achilles. It remained a popular subject in eighteenth-century France, given the opportunity to depict the nude. This is a sketch for a lost octagonal ceiling painting originally in the home of Jérôme de Nouveau, Superintendant General of Posts in Paris. It was clearly chosen here as an allusion to King Louis XIV’s identification with Apollo.