Achilles wounded in the Heel
Artist/Maker
Material / Technique
Dimensionsh x w: Mått 98 x 70 cm h x w x d: Ram 117 x 89 x 8 cm
Inventory numberNM 428
Other titlesTitel (sv): Akilles såras i hälen Titel (en): Achilles wounded in the Heel Titel (en): Achilles Wounded by Paris
DescriptionRes. Katalogtext: Description in Flemish paintings C. 1600-C. 1800 III, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2010, cat.no. 76: Technical notes: The support consists of a single piece of dense, intricately-woven twill canvas with a vertical zig-zag “herringbone” weave and woven pattern of dark blue (indigo?) “ticking” stripes; there are selvedges at the left and right edges. The original stripwidth of the fabric was just over 74.0 cm. Tacking edges (ungrounded) are preserved on all sides; at the top and bottom a c. 0.5–0.7 cm wide strip of the original paint surface has been folded over the stretcher. Faint cusping is visible on the left edge. The preparatory layers consist of a thin, beige ground that leaves the canvas texture partially visible. The painting underwent conservation treatment in 1841, 1861, 1926, 1982 and 2010. Provenance: Gustav III (as Crown Prince) 1761 (as Bertholet Flémalle); Gustav III 1792, no. 43 (as Bertholet Flémalle); KM 1795, no. 64; KM 1816, no. 750. Exhibited: Stockholm 2010, no. 60. Bibliography: NM Cat. 1867, p. 29 (as Bertholet Flémalle); Sander II, p. 105; Göthe 1887, p. 85 (as Bertholet Flémalle); Göthe 1893, pp. 105–106; Göthe 1910, p. 119; Granberg 1929–1931, III, p. 18; NM Cat. 1958, p. 72; NM Cat. 1990, p. 132. This dramatic night scene depicts the legendary Greek hero Achilles treacherously brought down while praying in the temple of Apollo by Paris, son of the Trojan king Priam. Apollo, the Sun God and protector of poetry and music, appears twice in the scene: as an imaginary antique statue atop the altar on the right, carrying bow and quiver as well as cithara, and in the “flesh”, descending in a blaze of light, as the vengeful god who comes to the aid of Paris by aiming his arrow in the direction of the kneeling Achilles’ vulnerable heel. The artist represents the moment just before Paris, who approaches his victim from the rear, shoots the arrow that will penetrate Achilles’ foot and kill him. In contrast to the majority of the gods who favoured the Greeks, Apollo had stood on the side of the Trojans all through the war and now finally dealt a mortal blow to the Greek hero, thus avenging the death of his son Tenes, who had been killed by Achilles at Tenedos. The figure on the left, who draws his sword in a futile attempt to defend his companion, is probably Nestor’s son Antilochus (see below). The all’antica “stone” relief prominently placed in the foreground at the lower right possibly calls to mind Achilles’ ancestry through its depiction of the story of Deucalion, often called the Greek Noah, and his wife Pyrrha.1 The present subject, drawn from the authoritative texts of classical antiquity, is one infrequently represented in 17th-century Flemish art.2 Homer did not narrate Achilles’ death, but the Greek hero’s violent end at the hands of Paris was twice predicted in the Illiad, first by Achilles’ horse Xanthos (Illiad, XIX, 416–417) and later by the dying Hector, whose last words warned the victorious Achilles to be careful, for he, Hector, might become the gods’ curse upon him “on that day when Paris and Phoebus Apollo destroy you in the Scaean gates…” (Illiad, XXII, 358–360). According to later writers, who provided the narrative details that Homer had omitted, Achilles was murdered in the temple of Apollo Thymbraeus, near the Trojan walls, where he had gone unarmed either to marry the Trojan princess Polyxena, daughter of the Trojan king Priam and Hecuba, who instigated the murder to avenge the death of their sons Hector and Troilus at the hands of Achilles, or to conclude peace with Polyxena’s father, king Priam. The legend that Achilles was killed by Paris, aided by Apollo, in the temple of Apollo, where he had been lured under the pretext that he was going to marry Polyxena, with whom he had fallen in love, was repeated frequently since, in the 4th century, Servius Grammaticus had told the story in his commentary on Virgil’s Aeneid: “… [Achilles] had made arrangements to accept his beloved Polyxena as bride in the temple; and he was killed treacherously by Paris, who was hiding behind an image. It is therefore thought that Paris directed his arrows while Apollo held him and he directed them well, straight at the only vulnerable spot”.3 Flémalle could have known Servius’ version of the legend, that of Boccaccio, or one of the later mythological dictionaries, such as Natale Conti’s Mythologiae (1627).4 While the idea that Achilles was a victim of his passions is implicit in the story and the Renaissance mythographers usually ended their accounts with the moral that the hero fell victim to “lustful love”, Flémalle does not include any specific allusion to Achilles’ love for Polyxena in his depiction. On the contrary, he interprets the scene in classical terms by emphasizing the effect of the gods on man: the focus is on the inevitability of the hero’s fate and the impact of Apollo, the god who favoured Troy, a force that caused strength to be overpowered by treachery and ruse. The altar of Apollo is decorated with a date palm motif – a symbol of military victory as well as the Christian martyr’s victory over death – and a quiver (of Apollo?), an emblem possibly signifying that “to seek to know the ways of the gods is foolhardiness”.5 Flémalle’s interpretation may have been inspired by the pseudo-historical account of the Trojan War in Dares’ De excidio Troiae historia.6 Dares is one of the few authors to maintain that treachery and not love caused Achilles’ death, and he also states that he was accompanied to the temple by Antilochus, the son of Nestor. There are no signed or dated works by Flémalle and a chronology of his oeuvre is thus difficult to establish. Strongly influenced by Franco-Roman classicism, this painting should probably be dated around 1650, in the period immediately following the artist’s return to his native Liège after years spent abroad in Italy and France. Characteristic elements are the Classical architecture that defines the interior space of the temple, the violent movement that animates the principal fig- ures, underlined by the agitated draperies, anticipating another work dating from the same period, the spatially more complex Heliodorus Driven from the Temple in Brussels (Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts).7 Immediately striking in both works is the great importance given to the architectural setting in which the artist situates the scenes: the monumental temple interior with rows of stately Doric columns and the almost exaggerated perspective of the pavement with its clear vanishing lines. Also recognizable is the typically short stature of Flémalle’s figures, their accentuated expressions and theatrical gestures, the armour and draperies all’antica, the latter with tight folds that, rather than defining the figures’ underlying anatomy, underline gestures and movements. Flémalle carefully associates metallic or silvery tones with areas of strong colour, such as vermilion, creating a rarefied colour scheme. CF 1 According to Ovid, Met., I, pp. 318ff.). 2 See Pigler II, 283. Interestingly, a painting of the same subject by Gérard de Lairesse (present whereabouts unknown) was listed by G. Hoet and P. Terwesten, for which see their Catalogus of naamlijst van schilderijen…, II The Hague, 1752, p. 289 no. 4; and Roy 1992, p. 491 no. M.101 (sale, The Hague, Coll. Adelyke Huys de Voorst, Countess of Albemarle, 26 October 1744). Cf. Rubens’ Achilles series, which includes the scene of the Death of Achilles, for which see Haverkamp-Begemann 1975, 134–141, figs. 74–82; and Rotterdam/Madrid 2003. 3 Servius Grammaticus, P. Virgilii Maronis Opera, cum Servii … Commentariis …, Venice, 1542, ad Aeneid, VI, 57 ff., cited after Haverkamp-Begemann 1975, p. 136. 4 For a discussion of the literary sources used by Rubens for his depiction of the legend, see Haverkamp-Begemann 1975, pp. 20–37, 134–38; Held 1980, p. 183; King 1987, pp. 140–143, 184–214; and Healy in Rotterdam/ Madrid 2003, p. 46. Among the authoritative texts discussed, which differ only in details, are: Boccaccio’s De Genealogia Deorum (ed. Micyllus, Basle, p.308), and Natale Conti’s, Mythologie ou explication des fables… (Paris 1627, p. 1013). For Catullus (Carmina, 64, pp. 362–370), Ovid (Metamorphoses 13, pp. 441–448), Seneca (Trojan Women) and others, Achilles was not in love with Polyxena and she was later sacrificed on his tomb. For Dares (De excidio Troiae historia) and Dictys (Ephemeris belli Troiani) love caused Achilles’ downfall; a view maintained by most medieval writers. 5 Cf. the emblem of a date palm, titled “Divina scrutari, temerarium/Ad Corneium Musium Delphum”, in the emblem-book of Hadrianus Junius, an edition of which was published at Antwerp by Christopher Plantin in 1585, accompanied by the following inscription: “Immatura sitim Pharia, arcet Palma, eadem/Sensus praepedit, et linguam matura ligat./Scrutans celsa Dei mysteria, lingua, animo/Haeret; at ille sapit qui vestibulum haud superat”. 6 For an Engl. trans., see The Trojan War. The Chronicles of Dictys of Crete and Dares the Phrygian. Trans. R. M. Frazer (Indiana Univ. Press) 1966. 7 Oil on canvas, 146 x 174 cm, Brussels, Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts, inv. no. 1299, for which see Brussels 1965, cat. no. 82, illus.[End]
Motif categoryReligion/Mythology
Collection
TechniquePainting
Object category
Keyword