Bacchus and Ariadne
Angelica Kauffman RA (Chur 1741 – Rome 1807)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1794 (signed and dated)
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
2464 x 1651 mm (97 x 65 in)
Place of origin
Rome
Order this imageCollection
Attingham Park, Shropshire
NT 608953
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Bacchus and Ariadne by Angelica Kauffman RA (Chur 1741 – Rome 1807), signed and dated: Angelica Kauffman Pinx: Romae 1794. Bacchus, the god of wine, wearing a leopard skin and carring a thyrsus is being led by Cupid, god of desire, represented as a winged boy. Cupid draws a golden drape aside to reveal Ariadne, in white, reclining at the right. She is weeping and has raised her right hand. The composition has a coastal setting with rockfaces and the blue sea beyond. Companion to 'Euphrosyne complaining to Venus of the Wound caused by Cupid’s Dart' by Angelica Kauffman (NT 608951). An earlier version of the subject, dated 1764 and among first classical pictures by Kauffman is in the Landesmuseum, Bregenz. The picture was commissioned by Thomas Noel Hill, 2nd Lord Berwick (1770-1832). He was in Rome in 1792-93 with the mineralogist and traveller Edward Clarke (1769-1822), who related that 'Lord Berwick is employing Angelica Kauffmann in painting and I am now selecting passages from the poets for her to paint for his house at Attingham'. The subject was taken from Ovid.
Provenance
Commissioned from the artist by Thomas Noel, 2nd Lord Berwick; thence by descent; [1847 Catalogue of Paintings, p.17; 1861 Inventory p.223; 1827 sale catalogue, lot 53, p.93]; bequeathed to the National Trust with the estate, house and contents of Attingham by Thomas Henry Noel-Hill, 8th Baron Berwick (1877-1947) on 15th May 1953.
Credit line
Attingham Park, The Berwick Collection (National Trust)
Marks and inscriptions
Angelica Kauffmann Pinx Romae 1793 (signed and dated on bottom of plinth)
Makers and roles
Angelica Kauffman RA (Chur 1741 – Rome 1807), artist
References
Jones 2018 Saraid Jones, ‘Angelica Kauffman at Attingham Park', National Trust Historic Houses & Collections Annual, 2018, pp.32-8
