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Description: | The painting depicts the birth of Adonis. It shows a group of nymphs in a rustic landscape. In the centre of the painting are two women drawing the infant Adonis out of a hollow tree, the woman on the left is standing, the one on the right is kneeling. To the right are two women, a young girl and an old crone, presumably Lucina, looking-on curiously. To the left are four women apparently engaged in domestic tasks; fetching water, laundry, etc. §Adonis was conceived out of the incestuous love of his mother Myrrha for her father Cinyras. Overcome with shame she invoked the gods who changed her into a myrrh tree. In due course the trunk split open and the infant Adonis was born, to be cared for by Myrrha's nurse Lucina and the nymphs (Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 10, lines 503-14). The theme is found chiefly in in 16th and 17th century Italian paintings and shows Myrrha with upraised arms, half woman, half tree, and the infant delivered into the arms of Lucina or the nymphs.§ (Hall, J., Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art London, 1974). | Subjects: | mythology (Adonis) | Source: | Vads | Creator: | Artist: Coypel, Antoine (French painter, 1661-1722) Æ School of Previously attributed to David, Jacques-Louis (French painter and draftsman, 1748-1825) Previously attributed to Le Brun, Charles (French designer, painter, and draftsman, 1619-1690) | Identifier: | http://www.vads.ac.uk/large.php?uid=9155... | Go to resource |
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