Erasistratus Discovering the Cause of Antiochus' Disease
Erasistratus Discovering the Cause of Antiochus' Disease | |
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Artist | Jacques-Louis David |
Year | 1774 |
Medium | Oil on canvas |
Dimensions | 120 cm × 155 cm (47 in × 61 in) |
Location | Beaux-Arts de Paris, Paris |
Erasistratus Discovering the Cause of Antiochus' Disease (French: Érasistrate découvrant la cause de la maladie d’Antiochius dans son amour pour Stratonice) is a 1774 oil painting by French neoclassical artist Jacques-Louis David. The work is a history painting depicting an episode from Plutarch's Lives in which Greek court physician Erasistratus diagnoses the illness of Antiochus, the son of Seleucus I, as lovesickness for his stepmother Stratonice. The painting was awarded the 1774 Prix de Rome by the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture.
Origin
Painting painted in 1774. After its presentation in the competition for the Prix de Rome, it was recovered by David and entrusted to Michel-Jean Sedaine. In the Sedaine family, the painting then passed into the collection of the Comte de Brissay, son-in-law of Sedaine. In 1860 the House of the Emperor acquired it for 3000 francs, and it was installed at the National School of Fine Arts. The painting was restored in 1860 and 1981.[1]
The scene
Antiochus is bedridden, suffering from a sickly languor. His father, King Seleucus, is at the foot of the bed in the dark. To save his son, he called on the great physician Erasistratus.
The latter is beside him, taking his pulse: his left hand on Antiochus' wrist. The doctor asked that the women of the palace present themselves, one by one, before Antiochus. When Stratonice's turn comes, the young prince's pulse quickens, Erasistratus then raises his right hand, index finger pointing to the "cause of the disease".
Erasistratus convinced the king to give up the beautiful Stratonice to his son, and the prince recovers.[2]
See also
References
- ^ Antoine Schnapper; Arlette Sérullaz, eds. (1989). Jacques-Louis David 1748-1825: catalogue de l'exposition rétrospective Louvre-Versailles 1989-1990 (in French). Paris: Réunion des Musées nationaux. p. 54. ISBN 2-7118-2326-1.
- ^ Pierre Theil (1965). L'esprit éternel de la médecine, anthologie des écrits médicaux anciens. L'Antiquité occidentale. Vol. 1. Compagnie générale de publicité et d'édition. p. 218.
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- List of works
- Portrait of François Buron (1769)
- Jupiter and Antiope (1771)
- Minerva Fighting Mars (1771)
- Diana and Apollo Killing Niobe's Children (1772)
- The Death of Seneca (1773)
- Erasistratus Discovering the Cause of Antiochus' Disease (1774)
- The Funeral Games of Patroclus (1778)
- Saint Jerome Hears the Trumpet of the Last Judgment (1779)
- Saint Roch Interceding with the Virgin for the Plague-Stricken (1780)
- Portrait of Count Stanislas Potocki (1780)
- Belisarius Begging for Alms (1781)
- Christ on the Cross (1782)
- Andromache Mourning Hector (1783)
- Portrait of Alphonse Leroy (1783)
- Oath of the Horatii (1784)
- The Vestal Virgin (c. 1787)
- The Death of Socrates (1787)
- Portrait of Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier and his Wife (1788)
- The Loves of Paris and Helen (1788)
- The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons (1789)
- Portrait of Madame Pastoret (1791)
- Lycurgus of Sparta (1791)
- Portrait of Philippe-Laurent de Joubert (c. 1792)
- Portrait of Madame Marie-Louise Trudaine (1792, unfinished)
- The Death of Marat (1793)
- The Last Moments of Michel Lepeletier (1793, lost)
- The Death of Young Bara (1794, incomplete)
- The Tennis Court Oath (1794, incomplete)
- Self-Portrait (1794)
- Portrait of Pierre Seriziat (1795)
- Psyche Abandoned (1795)
- The Intervention of the Sabine Women (1799)
- Portrait of Madame Récamier (1800)
- Portrait of Cooper Penrose (1802)
- Napoleon at the Saint-Bernard Pass (1800–1805)
- Portrait of Pope Pius VII (1805)
- Napoleon in Imperial Costume (1805)
- The Coronation of Napoleon (1807)
- Sappho and Phaon (1809)
- The Distribution of the Eagle Standards (1810)
- Portrait of comte Antoine Français de Nantes (1811)
- Napoleon in His Study (1812)
- Leonidas at Thermopylae (1814)
- Cupid and Psyche (1817)
- The Farewell of Telemachus and Eucharis (1818)
- The Anger of Achilles (1819)
- Mars Being Disarmed by Venus (1824)