Apollo
Artist: Luteri Giovanni called Dosso Dossi (Italian, c. 1487-1542)
Date: c. 1525
Medium: Oil on canvas
Collection: Galleria Borguese, Rome, Italy
Description
The subject, which draws on the myth of Apollo and Daphne, is taken from Ovid's Metamorphoses (I, 452-467).
After having killed the monster Python, Apollo boasts about it to Cupid, mocking him for carrying a bow and arrow, unsuitable weapons for a child. Cupid takes his revenge by piercing Apollo with his arrows and arousing love in Apollo and the rejection of that love by the beautiful nymph Daphne: Apollo pursues her but the maiden pleads with her father, the river god Peneus, to release her from the body that arouses men's admiration. Daphne, barely visible in the background on the left, is being transformed into a laurel tree.
