Apollo and Daphne
Antwerp, 1558
Etching
Plate: 230 x 312 mm
Mount: 405 x 556 mm
Apollo and Daphne were among Cupid’s targets. Apollo, instilled with a great passion, pursues a terrified Daphne, who seeks divine assistance. Here, she is in the process of metamorphosing into a laurel tree: limbs sprouting leaves, foot merging with the earth to take root. The scene is placed in a contemporary European landscape punctuated with church steeples. Whilst this combination of myth and landscape could be an attempt to make the subject feel more immediate, it also suggests the scene carries a Christian moral – Daphne’s salvation mirroring an answered prayer.
Purchased November 1957 (No. 57.8) for £10