Anton Raphael Mengs
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
- William Coxe
- "Philippe's son Louis, religious and somewhat neurotic, attacked with a knife one of the most famous works, Correggio's Leda and the Swan, now in Berlin, and ordered the painter Charles-Antoine Coypel to cut up all three of the great Correggio mythological works in the presence of his chaplain, which Coypel did, but saving and repairing the pieces. The Leda went to Frederick the Great of Prussia, the Danäe to Venice, where it was stolen and eventually sold to the English consul at Leghorn, and Jupiter and Io went to the Imperial collection in Vienna."
During the suspension of his works at the cathedral, Correggio received a commission, which indicates the high reputation he then enjoyed in Lombardy.
Frederic, the second Duke of Man- tua, desirous of presenting the Em- peror Charles the Fifth with two ex- cellent pictures, selected Correggio to paint them. 11 The subjects, according to Vasari, were Leda and Venus ; but according to Mengs and Ratti, with more probability, Leda and Dana*. They were said to be so well executed, that Julio Romano, who was at the court of Mantua, declared he neu-r -a\v such excellent colouring. A cu- rious anecdote is recorded of their subsequent fate. Being sent by tlu- Emperor to Prague, they were after- wards taken by the Swedes at the sack of that city, and conveyed to Stockholm, by order of Gustavus Adolphus. On his death, being neg- lected, they were discovered in the reign of Christina, degraded to the purpose of window-shutters in a stable, by Bourdon, a French painter, whom she patronized. They were repaired by her order, conveyed to Rome, and after her decease, came into the possession of Don Livio Odescalchi, Duke of Bracciano,* by whose heirs they were sold to the Regent, Duke of Orleans; but by the order of his son, who was shocked at the nudity of the figures, the pic- tures were cut in pieces. A similar fate, according to Mengs, happened to the lo, ascribed also to Correggio, which was in the same collection, and probably obtained in the same manner from the heirs of the Duke of Bracciano; for the Duke of Or- leans himself cut out the head, and burnt it. Coypel, a French painter, afterwards collected the remnants of the piece which were not destroyed, and to which a new head was added by another artist; and the picture sold to the King of Prussia for a great price, and placed in the Gallery of Sans Souci. A Danae, supposed to be painted by Correggio, was preserved in the Orleans collection, as acquired from the heirs of Christina. It was purchased by Mr. Hope, and is now said to be at Paris. -- "Sketches of the lives of Correggio, and Parmegiano"
