GENERAL DESCRIPTION
This late 17th-century mythological scene by Antoine Coypel symbolizes the union of Cupid, the god of love, and Bacchus, the god wine. Both deities are youthful figures, with Bacchus as a handsome young man, and Cupid a boy just verging on adolescence. Venus looks on from her cloud overhead while Cupid and Bacchus drink a toast to their alliance. Others join in the celebration: three Graces dance at left, and creatures from Bacchus's company, including fauns, cavort at right. Coypel painted this work for a private patron and exhibited it at the Salon of 1704.
Adapted from
- DMA label copy, n.d.
- DMA label copy, 1993.
NOTES
c. 1702
Checked Piction
One General Description source: DMA thematic label copy (1990.144.FA), Ancient Mediterranean and European Art, nd, Education files, other is Dallas Museum of Art, Museum of Europe Label Text August, 1993
Coypel painted this work for a private patron and exhibited it at the Salon of 1704. The style of this charming mythological scene betrays the influence of Titian. Venus looks on from her cloud overhead while hers on Cupid, god of love, and Bacchus, god of the vine, drink a toast to their alliance. Others join in the celebration: three Graces dance at left, and creatures from Bacchus's company, including fauns, cavort at right. Dallas Museum of Art, Museum of Europe Label Text August, 1993
Love’s dangers are most perilous when you do not realize that his arrow has struck...
Although it is unlikely that Coypel contributed the poem, he surely understood its moral. His father, Antoine Coypel, had delivered the same message in his lectures to the students of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture. His commentary on love is as much a warning as a lesson in how best to represent the emotion. The love that grabs his attention is concupiscence—that is, lust, love’s most dangerous form. He first describes how “a passionate lover at the feet of an adored mistress forgets Heaven and Earth and loses himself in this moment,” and observes: “Ingenious in fooling itself, the heart finds false pretexts to weaken and refuses to listen to the annoying voice of reason . . . The first wound that love inflicts on a soul is incredible. Sometimes one imagines that reason can combat it, and in this instant love knows how to vanquish and triumph without us even perceiving it.” Love, he admits “is accompanied by the graces, amusements, laughter, enjoyment, and pleasure.”4 But, continuing, Coypel reminds students that love can lead them to “the most dangerous precipices. I must add that if love in its beginning seems only amiable, in the measure that it grows, it abuses its privilege; it reigns in the heart as a superb tyrant, its blind fury can lead it to trouble all the passions that follow and surround it: uneasy desire, fear, suspicion, the sad furors of jealousy, hate, anger that a rival inspires, and so on. It is never more dangerous than when it appears the most amiable; it knows how to vanquish and attack, and it triumphs over the greatest men and the masters of the earth. It overturns states, produces bloody wars, and renders an entire people victim of a single man whose blind passion leads him in the most frightening evils.”5 (page 41)
Mary D. Sheriff, "Love Hurts: On the Pleasures and Perils of Love in Eighteenth-Century French Art," in French Art of the Eighteenth Century: The Michael L. Rosenberg Lecture Series at the Dallas Museum of Art, ed. Heather MacDonald (Dallas: Dallas Museum of Art and the Michael L. Rosenberg Foundation, distributed by New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016), 38-51.
Coypel, Antoine (French, 1661-1722)
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Geography
Place of origin: Paris (France): TGN: 7008038
Process/materials
Historical periods
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RELATED OBJECTS
PROVENANCE
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WEB RESOURCES
- The British Museum, London~Check out this 1717 portrait of Antoine Coypel.
- Museo del Prado, Madrid~Read a biography of Antoine Coypel.
- The Morgan Library & Museum, New York~View a drawing of an angel by Coypel.
- National Galleries Scotland, Edinburgh~See a portrait of Coypel and his son, Charles Antoine Coypel by Gaspard Duchange.
- Chateau de Versailles~Explore the Royal Chapel of Versailles. Antoine Coypel painted the center panel of the ceiling, God the Father in his Glory.
ARCHIVAL RESOURCES
FUN FACTS
TEACHING IDEAS
- Antoine Coypel's son, Charles-Antoine Coypel, was also a painter.
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Apply to objects where number equals 1990.144.FA
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General Description
This late 17th-century mythological scene by Antoine Coypel symbolizes the union of Cupid, the god of love, and Bacchus, the god wine. Both deities are youthful figures, with Bacchus as a handsome young man, and Cupid a boy just verging on adolescence. Venus looks on from her cloud overhead while Cupid and Bacchus drink a toast to their alliance. Others join in the celebration: three Graces dance at left, and creatures from Bacchus's company, including fauns, cavort at right. Coypel painted this work for a private patron and exhibited it at the Salon of 1704.
Adapted from
- DMA label copy, n.d.
- DMA label copy, 1993.
Fun Facts
Archival Resources
Web Resources
- The British Museum, London~Check out this 1717 portrait of Antoine Coypel.
- Museo del Prado, Madrid~Read a biography of Antoine Coypel.
- The Morgan Library & Museum, New York~View a drawing of an angel by Coypel.
- National Galleries Scotland, Edinburgh~See a portrait of Coypel and his son, Charles Antoine Coypel by Gaspard Duchange.
- Chateau de Versailles~Explore the Royal Chapel of Versailles. Antoine Coypel painted the center panel of the ceiling, God the Father in his Glory.
Notes
c. 1702
Checked Piction
One General Description source: DMA thematic label copy (1990.144.FA), Ancient Mediterranean and European Art, nd, Education files, other is Dallas Museum of Art, Museum of Europe Label Text August, 1993
Coypel painted this work for a private patron and exhibited it at the Salon of 1704. The style of this charming mythological scene betrays the influence of Titian. Venus looks on from her cloud overhead while hers on Cupid, god of love, and Bacchus, god of the vine, drink a toast to their alliance. Others join in the celebration: three Graces dance at left, and creatures from Bacchus's company, including fauns, cavort at right. Dallas Museum of Art, Museum of Europe Label Text August, 1993
Love’s dangers are most perilous when you do not realize that his arrow has struck...
Although it is unlikely that Coypel contributed the poem, he surely understood its moral. His father, Antoine Coypel, had delivered the same message in his lectures to the students of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture. His commentary on love is as much a warning as a lesson in how best to represent the emotion. The love that grabs his attention is concupiscence—that is, lust, love’s most dangerous form. He first describes how “a passionate lover at the feet of an adored mistress forgets Heaven and Earth and loses himself in this moment,” and observes: “Ingenious in fooling itself, the heart finds false pretexts to weaken and refuses to listen to the annoying voice of reason . . . The first wound that love inflicts on a soul is incredible. Sometimes one imagines that reason can combat it, and in this instant love knows how to vanquish and triumph without us even perceiving it.” Love, he admits “is accompanied by the graces, amusements, laughter, enjoyment, and pleasure.”4 But, continuing, Coypel reminds students that love can lead them to “the most dangerous precipices. I must add that if love in its beginning seems only amiable, in the measure that it grows, it abuses its privilege; it reigns in the heart as a superb tyrant, its blind fury can lead it to trouble all the passions that follow and surround it: uneasy desire, fear, suspicion, the sad furors of jealousy, hate, anger that a rival inspires, and so on. It is never more dangerous than when it appears the most amiable; it knows how to vanquish and attack, and it triumphs over the greatest men and the masters of the earth. It overturns states, produces bloody wars, and renders an entire people victim of a single man whose blind passion leads him in the most frightening evils.”5 (page 41)
Mary D. Sheriff, "Love Hurts: On the Pleasures and Perils of Love in Eighteenth-Century French Art," in French Art of the Eighteenth Century: The Michael L. Rosenberg Lecture Series at the Dallas Museum of Art, ed. Heather MacDonald (Dallas: Dallas Museum of Art and the Michael L. Rosenberg Foundation, distributed by New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016), 38-51.
Coypel, Antoine (French, 1661-1722)
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