Essays towards the history of paintingCallcott, Maria, Lady
History
Essays towards the history of painting
Callcott, Maria, Lady
Painting -- History
“Cupid and my Campaspe played
At cards for kisses, Cupid paid;
He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows;
His mother’s doves, and team of sparrows;
Loses them too; then down he throws
The coral of his lip, the rose
Growing on ’s cheek (but none knows how),
With these the crystal of his brow,
And then the dimple of his chin;
All these did my Campaspe win.
At last he set her both his eyes,
She won, and Cupid blind did rise.
O, Love! has she done this to thee?
What shall, alas! become of me?”
[127] Lucian’s description of the Calumny is as follows: “On the right
hand side sits a man with ears almost as long as Midas’s, stretching
forth his hand towards the figure of Calumny, who appears at a distance
coming up to him; he is attended by two women, who, I imagine,
represent Ignorance and Suspicion. From the other side approaches
Calumny, in the form of a woman, to the last degree beautiful, but
seeming warmed and inflamed, as full of anger and resentment; bearing
a lighted torch in her left hand, and with her right dragging by the
hair of his head a young man, who lifts up his eyes to Heaven, as
calling the gods to witness his innocence. Before her stands a pale
ugly figure, with sharp eyes, and emaciated, like one worn down with
disease, which we easily perceive is meant for Envy; and behind are two
women, who seem to be employed in dressing, adorning, and assisting
her, one of whom, as my interpreter informed me, was Treachery, and the
other Deceit; at some distance, in the back part of the picture, stands
a woman in a mourning habit, all torn and ragged, which we were told
represented Penitence; as she turned her eyes back she blushed and wept
at the sight of Truth, who was approaching towards her.” It is evident
that Botticelli first, and afterwards Raffaelle, followed this account
of Lucian. Albert Durer also, in his decorative picture, on the walls
of the town hall at Neurembourg, drew from the same source.
Lucian says that Apelles had been held in esteem by Ptolemy, until the
rivals of Apelles made the king believe that he had conspired at Tyre,
with one Theodotus, against him, and that the defection of Tyre and
the loss of Pelusium were owing to the advice of Apelles. Now nothing
could be more false, Apelles never was at Tyre. But Ptolemy, without
considering this, was about to order him to be beheaded. Afterwards,
when convinced of his innocence, he is said to have given him a hundred
talents, and likewise his accuser for a slave.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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