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Description: | Ant V "B.West pinxit Publish'd by J. Boydell, Cheapside Feby 21st 1774 V.Green Metzotinto Engraver to his Majesty fecit"
Recto, in ink, b.r.: "33" CRE GREEN, Valentine; (English; 1739-1813) AFTER WEST, Benjamin; (American; 1738-1820) PUB BOYDELL, John; (English; 1719-1804) From the founder, William Hunter's print collection. This is one of two medical subjects treated by West and engraved by Green (the other being Philip, The Physician of Alexander). Like Regulus, the Epaminondas was painted for George III as a moral exemplum. Epaminondas (418-362 BC) was a Greek general who suffered a particularly noble death fighting the Spartans at Mantinea (362 B.C.). The source for the story is the Lives of Cornelis Nepos, a standard historical text. Nepos describes how Epaminondas was struck by a spear at the battle of Mantinea, and his doctor warned him that death would follow immediately upon the removal of the warhead. West depicted the moment when the general's shield was found and shown to him - this symbolized victory - and he asked for the weapon to be removed.
The subject of Epaminondas's noble death is an exemplary neoclassical subject. West's subjects echo those set for the premiums offered in the early 1760s by the Society of Arts. The subject of Epaminondas had been set in 1762 for the premium for 'Historical Bas-Reliefs in Portland Stone or Purbeck Stone'. In 1761 the subject set for a historical relief was The Departure of Regulus (Horace Odes 3.5) and in 1763, the Death of Socrates (Plato, Apology of Socrates). Whether or not it was Hunter or one of his learned colleagues who settled on Epaminondas, Hunter in any case had several editions of Nepos's Lives, including the 1761 edition printed by the Foulis press in Glasgow. | License: | http://www.hmag.gla.ac.uk/spirit/rights/ | Publisher: | Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow | Rights holder: | Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow | Subjects: | XENOPHON HELLENICA : DIODORUS XV 87 : PAUSANIAS IX 15 : THEBAN GENERAL : ANCIENT HISTORY : GREEK HISTORY : HISTORY PAINTING : HUNTER 2007 : NEOCLASSICISM : | Source: | Hunterian Museum | Creator: | Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow | Identifier: | http://www.huntsearch.gla.ac.uk/cgi-bin/... | Language: | en-GB | Go to resource |
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