The National Portrait Gallery in London has acquired an 18th-century painting by Angelica Kauffman, a first, and has it on display.
Titled ‘Achilles discovered among the Daughters of Lycomedes‘ (1787–88), the painting is based on the lore of the nymph Thetis hiding the Greek hero Achilles, her son, on the island of Skyros. She did it to stop him from joining the Trojan War, where he was prophesied to die a heroic death at a young age. She dressed him as a woman and commanded him to live among the daughters of King Lycomedes. However, he was discovered by Odysseus, king of Ithaca, when he drew his sword. The scene of the painting depicts this exact scene.
The acquisition is significant because it is the first Kauffman painting to enter a public UK collection in nearly two centuries. The last time was in 1835, when the National Gallery acquired another painting by the artist. However, it was later given to Tate Britain when it opened in 1897, which later gave it on loan and ultimately led to the destruction of the work during World War II.
There are some interesting facts about the work ‘Achilles ..’, like the fact that the scene it depicts did not feature in Homer’s Illeiad. Instead, Kauffman took inspiration from Achilleid, a separate work which came much later in the 1st century CE. The painting is also not the primary work; it is an oil study of a much larger work which is currently at a research institute in St. Petersburg, Russia.
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Gabriele Finaldi, director of the National Gallery, said: “We are very grateful to Richard and Luba Barrett for this generous gift of three outstanding pictures by Swiss artists from the 18th and 19th centuries. As well as a striking portrait by Hodler and a fine landscape by Calame, we have been given the first work by Angelica Kauffmann to enter the National Gallery’s current collection.”
