ATTRIBUTED TO LAURENT DE LA HYRE (1606-1656) Artemisia...
ATTRIBUTED TO LAURENT DE LA HYRE (1606-1656)
Artemisia at the Mausoleum of Her Husband
Oil on canvas, 100 x 135cm
The subject of the present work exercised numerous colleagues and friends of Homans over the years, with Artemisia being agreed upon as most likely even if there is no explicit allusion to the event in which she is involved. The indecipherable object held by the two flying putti doesn’t help but the one to the right, touching a stone next to the two columns might allude to the erection of the mausoleum.
Artemisia was the wife of Mausolus, the Provincial Governor of Caria in Asia Minor. On her husband’s death in 353 B.C. she erected a great elevated tomb and monument to his memory at Halicarnassus, thus providing the origin of the word ‘mausoleum’. The structure was designed by the Greek architects Satyros and Pythius of Priene. It was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
It was said that Artemisia mixed the ashes of Mausolus in liquid which she then drank, thereby, observed Valerius Maximus, the 1st century Latin historical writer, making of herself a living, breathing tomb. Artemisia symbolizes a widow's devotion to her husband's memory. In Renaissance painting she is depicted holding a cup or goblet, as in the present work.
The present attribution to La Hyre is Homan Potterton’s but in correspondence with fellow academics in Berlin, London and Paris, alternative attributions were also offered, most notably Giacinto Gimignani and Charles Alphonse Du Fresnoy. La Hyre was born in Paris in 1606 and became a pupil of Georges Lallemand. His use of colour and carefully posed figures are the trademarks of his distinctive painterly style and owes much to the influence of Italian painters working in Paris at the time. La Hyre was a leading exponent of the neo-classical style, known in art-historical circles as Parisian Atticism - a movement in French painting from 1640 to 1660, when painters working in Paris elaborated a rigorous neo-classical style, seeking sobriety, luminosity and harmony, and referring to the Greco-Roman world.
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ATTRIBUTED TO LAURENT DE LA HYRE (1606-1656)
Artemisia at the Mausoleum of Her Husband
Oil on canvas, 100 x 135cm
The subject of the present work exercised numerous colleagues and friends of Homans over the years, with Artemisia being agreed upon as most likely even if there is no explicit allusion to the event in which she is involved. The indecipherable object held by the two flying putti doesn’t help but the one to the right, touching a stone next to the two columns might allude to the erection of the mausoleum.
Artemisia was the wife of Mausolus, the Provincial Governor of Caria in Asia Minor. On her husband’s death in 353 B.C. she erected a great elevated tomb and monument to his memory at Halicarnassus, thus providing the origin of the word ‘mausoleum’. The structure was designed by the Greek architects Satyros and Pythius of Priene. It was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
It was said that Artemisia mixed the ashes of Mausolus in liquid which she then drank, thereby, observed Valerius Maximus, the 1st century Latin historical writer, making of herself a living, breathing tomb. Artemisia symbolizes a widow's devotion to her husband's memory. In Renaissance painting she is depicted holding a cup or goblet, as in the present work.
The present attribution to La Hyre is Homan Potterton’s but in correspondence with fellow academics in Berlin, London and Paris, alternative attributions were also offered, most notably Giacinto Gimignani and Charles Alphonse Du Fresnoy. La Hyre was born in Paris in 1606 and became a pupil of Georges Lallemand. His use of colour and carefully posed figures are the trademarks of his distinctive painterly style and owes much to the influence of Italian painters working in Paris at the time. La Hyre was a leading exponent of the neo-classical style, known in art-historical circles as Parisian Atticism - a movement in French painting from 1640 to 1660, when painters working in Paris elaborated a rigorous neo-classical style, seeking sobriety, luminosity and harmony, and referring to the Greco-Roman world.
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