Latona turning the Lycian peasants into frogs
South German School
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
c. 1700 - 1750
Materials
Ivory in wood
Measurements
70 x 120 mm
Place of origin
South Germany
Order this imageCollection
The Argory, County Armagh
NT 565570
Summary
Sculpture, ivory; Latona and the Frogs; probably South German; c. 1700-1750. An ivory relief depicting the mythological story in which Latona, the mother of the gods Apollo and Diana, punished a group of peasants who had stopped them from drinking at a lake, by turning them into frogs. In a black ebonised wood frame, on an easel.
Full description
A carved ivory relief depicting Latona with her two children Apollo and Diana, as she turns the Lycian peasants into frogs. Latona is at right, seated on the floating island of Delos. She gathers her two small children protectively to her and recoils, raising her right hand imploringly towards the sky and Olympus, as the large figure of a peasant, carrying a bundle of reeds, steps out of the water and appears to threaten to attack or manhandle her. At left are three of his companions, with sickles and bundles of reeds; one, who gesticulates towards Latona, has already begun to be transformed into a frog. At the bottom in the water is another man already transformed, who holds out imploringly his by now webbed hand. At far right a tree, at left in the background, a hill with a wood on top of it. Mounted in a black ebonised wood frame, the back of which is closed with pasted strips of paper, including an old letter, with handwriting. An inscription in ink recording the gift of the framed relief to Edward Staples Bond (1842-1901) from his mother Anne McGeough Bond (1805-1892). The story of Latona (Greek: Leto) was recounted by the Roman poet Ovid in his Metamorphoses (6: lines 313-381), the great classical source for stories of transformations. Latona was one of many women who caught the eye of Jupiter, king of the gods, who came to her. She gave birth to Apollo, god of the sun, and Diana, god of the moon and of the hunt. However, in her jealousy of Latona, Jupiter’s wife Juno banished the young mother and her children, who were forced to wander the seas upon the floating island of Delos. Eventually they came to the land of Lycia, in modern Turkey, where Latona, parched from the heat of the sun, found a lake from which she began to drink. A group of peasants were cutting reeds and objected to her presence. Despite Latona’s pleas, they cast abuse at her, even stirring up the waters so that they became muddy and undrinkable. In a moment of anger Latona shouted back at them ‘May you live in your filthy pool forever’. Jupiter heard her and the peasants promptly found themselves being transformed into frogs, as may be seen in the ivory relief. The relief does not appear to depend from a specific print or a painting, but rather to be an original composition. Among depictions of the story of Latona and the Lycian peasants, the peasants are portrayed as more physically aggressive than is usual, notably the figure attempting to climb onto Latona’s island and apparently about to assault her. There are some quite close parallels between the group of Latona and her children and the stone relief of this subject by Nicolas-Sébastien Adam the Younger (1705-1778), one of four reliefs of mythological subjects, now in the Musée Carnavelet, that he made between 1751-53 as part of the decorations for the la Folie Bouëxière in Paris (Pénet and Scherf 2021, pp. 210-14, no. 71). The Argory ivory relief, which stylistically looks as if it was made in southern Germany, would appear to date from the first half or middle of the eighteenth century. There is a French bronze group of Latona and her children at Belton House (NT 435367). The sculpture is one of three small ivory reliefs at the Argory that were acquired by Anne Smyth McGeough Bond (1805–1892), the second wife of Walter McGeough Bond (1790-1866) and given by her at an unknown date to her son Edward Staples McGeough Bond (1842-1891), the gifts being recorded in inscriptions on the backs of each relief. The other two (NT 565569 and 565571) are reproductions of famous antique sculptures to be seen in Rome. Edward McGeough Bond was the fifth son of Walter and Anne McGeough Bond; he may be seen at the age of six with his father in the portrait by Hugues Fourau (1803-1873) at the Argory (NT 564842). Edward McGeough Bond subsequently served in the Army, becoming a Captain in the Grenadier Guards. Jeremy Warren November 2022
Provenance
Anne Smyth McGeough Bond (1805–1892); given to her son Edward Staples McGeough Bond (1842-1891); by descent; Walter McGeough Bond (1908-86), by whom given to the National Trust in 1979.
Marks and inscriptions
On back, handwritten inscription:: Edward S Bond /from a loving mother / A McG Bond
Makers and roles
South German School, sculptor
References
Pénet and Scherf 2021: Pierre-Hippolyte Pénet and Guilhem Scherf, eds., Les Adam. La sculpture en heritage, exh. cat., Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nancy, Nancy/Ghent 2021