Apelles - Works

Works

Apelles' paintings (none of which survive) included:

  • Alexander wielding a thunderbolt, one of the many he did of both Alexander and his father Philip;
  • Aphrodite Anadyomene ("Aphrodite Rising from the Sea"), showing the goddess rising from the sea (not the painting he was working on when he died, but an earlier painting), for which Pliny the Elder relates the tradition he used a former mistress of Alexander, Campaspe, as his model for Aphrodite. According to Athenaeus, the idea of Aphrodite Rising from the Sea was inspired by Phryne who during the time of the festivals of the Eleusinia and Poseidonia had no problem swimming nude in the sea.
  • A portrait of Antigonus I Monophthalmus on horseback, in a three-quarters view which artfully concealed the subject's blind eye;
  • A portrait of Artemis surrounded by a group of maidens offering a sacrifice, based on Odyssey 6.102ff;
  • Sacrifice in Cos, described in the Mimes (4.59) of Herodas.
  • The portraits of Clitus the Black and Archelaus I of Macedon.
  • The procession of the high priest of Artemis at Ephesus.
  • The great allegory of Calumny.

A number of his paintings were taken to Rome (including Aphrodite Anadyomene) and placed there on public display; in two compositions featuring portraits of Alexander (Castor and Pollux with Victory and Alexander the Great, and The Figure of War with his Hands Tied Behind Him Following the Triumphal Chariot of Alexander) the Emperor Claudius later had Alexander's face replaced with that of his grandfather Augustus.

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