Venus preventing her son Aeneas from killing Helen of Troy
STEFANO TOFANELLI
STEFANO TOFANELLI
(Lucca 1752-1812)
Venus preventing her son Aeneas from killing Helen of Troy
Around 1805
Oil on canvas with gilded frame, 90.55 x 70.86 inch
This impressively sized painting is a relevant addition to the catalogue of the artist from Lucca, Stefano Tofanelli, one of the main protagonists of neoclassical Italian painting, first in Rome under Pope Pius VI, and then in napoleonic Lucca under Elisa Baciocchi Bonaparte.
The painting, whose authorship was also confirmed by professor Roberto Giovannelli represents an episode that Virgil has Aeneas report in the second book of the Aeneid (vv. 567-633), when the Trojan hero, in front of the people of Carthage, through tears, recalled the night when Troy fell.
Excerpt of the expertise by prof. Francesco Leone