#floating figures

Collection: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, United States

Collection: Important International Collection

Klopstock Among the Poets in Elysium depicts the German poet Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock entering the mythological afterlife (Elysium) to meet other great writers. It is a work of German classicism, celebrating Klopstock’s elevation to the status of a monumental poet

Collection: Private European Collection

Collection: National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, United States

The inspiration for this painting comes from the first stanzas of an ode by the ancient Roman poet Horace. The ode describes the renewal of Spring in terms of Greek and Roman myth: Winter to Spring: the west wind melts the frozen rancour, The windlass drags to sea the thirsty hull; Byre is no longer welcome to beast or fire to ploughman, The field removes the frost-cap from its skull. Venus of Cythera leads the dances under the hanging Moon and the linked line of Nymphs and Graces Beat the ground with measured feet while the busy Fire god Stokes his red-hot mills in volcanic places.

France, in the Guise of Minerva, Protecting the Arts (housed in the Louvre), is a large-scale allegory depicting Minerva (representing France and wisdom) shielding Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture. It uses a pyramidal composition and rich, luminous colors to promote French intellectualism, cultural pride, and artistic patronage after the Napoleonic era.

The Prince of Wales (later George IV), in the centre, gazes ardently at his mistress, Mrs Fitzherbert, with whom he lived from 1785 to 1803; to the left are the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan and a woman labelled as Miss Stephens (probably an anachronistic identification with the singer who became Countess of Essex); in front, Elizabeth Linley, Mrs Sheridan (d.1792), and Jacob Pleydell-Bouverie, 2nd Earl of Radnor. The scene is probably an allegory of the reconciliation effected by Sheridan between Mrs Fitzherbert and the Prince of Wales in 1787, after Fox had disavowed their marriage to Parliament, apparently on the authority of the Prince, to ensure that the settlement of the latter's debts was voted through. Once owned by the Sheridan family.