Painting Detail
ParnassusArtist: Anton Raphael Mengs
Medium: Painting, Oil on panel, 55x101 cm
Date: 1750s - 1760s
Genre: Mythology
Source: Acquired from D. Antario of Mannheim, Frankfurt-am-Main, 1814
This painting was a sketch for Mengs's fresco of 1761 in the central part of the ceiling of the Villa Albani in Rome, commissioned by Cardinal Alessandro Albani. We see an excellent example of how Mengs overcame Baroque traditions and turned increasingly towards the norms of Neoclassical art. The whole painting is redolent with the influence of Raphael's frescoes on the same theme in the Vatican apartment in Rome. In the centre is Apollo, or Apollo Musagetes, the Sun God, patron of the arts and leader of the Muses, with his attributes of a lyre, a laurel wreath upon his head and one in his hand. Seated to his left is Mnemosyne, mother of the Muses, and the Muses Thalia, Calliope, Polhymnia and Terpsichore. To his right the Muses Clio, Erato, Euterpe, Melpomene and Urania. Each Muse is depicted with her relevant attributes. Clio bears the features of Mengs's wife Margarita, while Mnemosyne is a likeness of Vittorucchia, daughter of Countess Ceroffini.