GENERAL DESCRIPTION
Niobe, the queen of Thebes, shelters her youngest daughter from Apollo and Diana‘s arrows. The queen’s thirteen other children lie wounded or dead in the painting’s foreground. This violent scene, drawn from a 1st-century Roman poem, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, illustrates Niobe’s punishment for boasting of her own power and fertility and for refusing to pay homage to the mother of her attackers.
Jacques-Louis David completed this painting when he was only twenty-four years old as part of his second bid to win the Prix de Rome, the ultimate prize for students in the French Royal Academy. David was deeply disappointed when the work was not given the top honor, and he subsequently attempted to starve himself to death. Fortunately, a fellow artist persuaded him to return to his studies at the Academy, and David finally won the prize in 1774.
Excerpt from
Nicole R. Myers, DMA label copy, 2018.
NOTES
Object File Reviewed
Checked Piction
Acquisition Justification:
The work under consideration is among Jacques-Louis David's earliest documented paintings. It was painted in 1772 as the final test in David's second bid to win the coveted Grand Prix, also known as the Rome Prize, which granted four years of advanced study at the French Academy in Rome. The scene assigned for the prize competition in 1772 was drawn from Book VI of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Niobe, daughter of Tantalus and wife of Amphion, King of Thebes, refuses to sacrifice to the goddess Latona and questions her divinity. To punish her, Latona orders her children, Apollo and Diana, to kill Niobe's seven sons and seven daughters, including the youngest, whom she is shown protecting. Niobe was subsequently turned by the gods into a block of marble that continued forever more to shed tears. The acquisition of this important early work by David would be a major addition to the Dallas Museum of Art's holdings of 18th-century French art. It would join Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre's Abduction of Europa, Joseph Vernet's Mountain Landscape with an Approaching Storm, and Jean-Antoine-Théodore Giroust's Oedipus at Colonus as a core object in the Museum's presentation of painting in France in the second half of the 18th century. While the Abduction of Europa and Oedipus at Colonus are in many ways "textbook" examples of history painting of their respective moments-the Rococo in the case of the Pierre, and the Neo-Classical in the case of the Giroust-we currently have no painting to help our visitors understand the gradual developments of the intervening decades that led artists to the re-engagement with classical artistic vocabularies toward the end of the century. This painting, with one foot still firmly planted in the 18th century and the other striding confidently toward the 19th, offers the opportunity to share that crucial narrative with our visitors. The subject of the painting was assigned to the young academicians, but David's treatment of the subject reveals the intense ambition of the twenty-four year old artist. He has featured not only the principal actors in the drama-Apollo, Diana, Niobe, and her last surviving daughter-but also includes many other characters described
by Ovid: the eldest son and first victim, caught by an arrow while riding his horse; two brothers who were shot by a single arrow while wrestling; and the youngest brother, shot through the thigh and the throat. David lavishes the most attention on the figure of Niobe
herself. He captures both the remaining hubris of her defiance of the gods, as she attempts to plead for the life of her last remaining child, and also hints at the final denouement, when Niobe's grief causes her to "congeal into stone" and become a marble statue that continues to weep for her lost children. Niobe wears a pink garment that is meant to represent the "splendid…gold-shot Phrygian garments" that Ovid describes her wearing at the beginning of tale, when in her pride she challenges the goddess Latona. David uses heavy impasto in these passages to suggest a golden brocade or embroidery over the rich pink fabric. The simple white drapery that Niobe wears beneath this garment, however, alludes to classical statuary, both a clever visual reference to the narrative's outcome and an opportunity for David to demonstrate his sophisticated understanding of classical form. The study of antique sculpture was the cornerstone of all instruction and doctrine at the Academy, but it would have held a special importance to David, who had studied with Joseph-Marie Vien, the most rigorously classical French artist of the mid-18th century. Apollo and Diana attacking the Children of Niobe would enrich the strengths of our 18th-century French collection while addressing some of its weaknesses. The painting would serve as the bridge between the Rococo brilliance of Pierre and the Neo-classical sobriety of Giroust. As a near-contemporary to the still-lifes of Anne Vallayer-Coster (1776) and the monumental landscape of Vernet (1774-75), it would add to our already rich representation of that transitional cultural moment. It would also complement the Michael L. Rosenberg Collection, which offers an exceptionally thorough overview of the major developments of 18th-century French painting yet remains relatively thin in the middle decades of the century, from the 1730s to the 1770s. It is also worth noting that if acquired, the work under consideration would become only the second painting by David in a public collection in Texas, the other example being a late work, The Anger of Achilles of 1819, in the collection of the Kimbell Art Museum since 1980.
Niobe, the queen of Thebes, shelters her youngest daughter from the arrows of Apollo and Diana, who have already slaughtered her other children. Their corpses litter the foreground of the painting. This violent scene, drawn from Ovid's Metamorphoses, illustrates what ensues when Niobe refuses to sacrifice to the goddess Latona, the mother of Apollo and Diana, and boasts about her own wealth, power, and fertility. As punishment, the goddess orders her children to kill Niobe's seven daughters and seven sons. Niobe was later turned into a block of marble that forever continued to shed tears.
Jacques-Louis David completed this painting when he was only twenty-four as part of his second bid to win the Prix de Rome, the ultimate prize for a student of the French Académie Royale and a prize that conferred three years of study in Rome. Each year, an elite group of art students was assigned a subject from classical history, literature, or the Bible, and were given two months to complete finished paintings. David was deeply disappointed when he failed to win the prize on his second attempt with Apollo and Diana Attacking the Children of Niobe, and he tried to commit suicide by starving himself to death. Fortunately, a fellow artist persuaded him to return to his studies at the Academy, and he finally won the prize in 1774.
Heather MacDonald
The Lillian and James H. Clark Associate Curator of European Art
June 2007
Jacques-Louis David completed this painting for his second bid to win the Grand Prix, the ultimate prize for students at the Académie Royale. Each year, an elite group of art students was assigned a subject and given two months to submit finished paintings. The prize was three years of study in Rome. In 1772 the assigned subject was drawn from the tragic story of Niobe in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In his ambitious composition, David catalogues the varied and gruesome deaths of Niobe’s children at the vengeful hands of Apollo and Diana with vivid painterly intensity. Although only twentyfour at the time, David already demonstrates the command of anatomy and gift for visual narrative that would make him the leading history painter in Europe in the following decades. Deeply disappointed when his painting did not win, David threatened suicide. He competed twice more before finally winning the prize in 1774.
Bonnie Pitman, ed., "Apollo and Diana Attacking the Children of Niobe," in Dallas Museum of Art: A Guide to the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 169.
David, Jacques-Louis (French, 1748-1825)
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WEB RESOURCES
- National Gallery of Art, Washington DC~Read a biography of Jacques-Louis David.
- University of Virginia E-text~Read book six of Ovid's Metamorphoses which includes the story of Niobe and her children.
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General Description
Niobe, the queen of Thebes, shelters her youngest daughter from Apollo and Diana‘s arrows. The queen’s thirteen other children lie wounded or dead in the painting’s foreground. This violent scene, drawn from a 1st-century Roman poem, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, illustrates Niobe’s punishment for boasting of her own power and fertility and for refusing to pay homage to the mother of her attackers.
Jacques-Louis David completed this painting when he was only twenty-four years old as part of his second bid to win the Prix de Rome, the ultimate prize for students in the French Royal Academy. David was deeply disappointed when the work was not given the top honor, and he subsequently attempted to starve himself to death. Fortunately, a fellow artist persuaded him to return to his studies at the Academy, and David finally won the prize in 1774.
Excerpt from
Nicole R. Myers, DMA label copy, 2018.
Fun Facts
Archival Resources
Web Resources
- National Gallery of Art, Washington DC~Read a biography of Jacques-Louis David.
- University of Virginia E-text~Read book six of Ovid's Metamorphoses which includes the story of Niobe and her children.
Notes
Object File Reviewed
Checked Piction
Acquisition Justification:
The work under consideration is among Jacques-Louis David's earliest documented paintings. It was painted in 1772 as the final test in David's second bid to win the coveted Grand Prix, also known as the Rome Prize, which granted four years of advanced study at the French Academy in Rome. The scene assigned for the prize competition in 1772 was drawn from Book VI of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Niobe, daughter of Tantalus and wife of Amphion, King of Thebes, refuses to sacrifice to the goddess Latona and questions her divinity. To punish her, Latona orders her children, Apollo and Diana, to kill Niobe's seven sons and seven daughters, including the youngest, whom she is shown protecting. Niobe was subsequently turned by the gods into a block of marble that continued forever more to shed tears. The acquisition of this important early work by David would be a major addition to the Dallas Museum of Art's holdings of 18th-century French art. It would join Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre's Abduction of Europa, Joseph Vernet's Mountain Landscape with an Approaching Storm, and Jean-Antoine-Théodore Giroust's Oedipus at Colonus as a core object in the Museum's presentation of painting in France in the second half of the 18th century. While the Abduction of Europa and Oedipus at Colonus are in many ways "textbook" examples of history painting of their respective moments-the Rococo in the case of the Pierre, and the Neo-Classical in the case of the Giroust-we currently have no painting to help our visitors understand the gradual developments of the intervening decades that led artists to the re-engagement with classical artistic vocabularies toward the end of the century. This painting, with one foot still firmly planted in the 18th century and the other striding confidently toward the 19th, offers the opportunity to share that crucial narrative with our visitors. The subject of the painting was assigned to the young academicians, but David's treatment of the subject reveals the intense ambition of the twenty-four year old artist. He has featured not only the principal actors in the drama-Apollo, Diana, Niobe, and her last surviving daughter-but also includes many other characters described
by Ovid: the eldest son and first victim, caught by an arrow while riding his horse; two brothers who were shot by a single arrow while wrestling; and the youngest brother, shot through the thigh and the throat. David lavishes the most attention on the figure of Niobe
herself. He captures both the remaining hubris of her defiance of the gods, as she attempts to plead for the life of her last remaining child, and also hints at the final denouement, when Niobe's grief causes her to "congeal into stone" and become a marble statue that continues to weep for her lost children. Niobe wears a pink garment that is meant to represent the "splendid…gold-shot Phrygian garments" that Ovid describes her wearing at the beginning of tale, when in her pride she challenges the goddess Latona. David uses heavy impasto in these passages to suggest a golden brocade or embroidery over the rich pink fabric. The simple white drapery that Niobe wears beneath this garment, however, alludes to classical statuary, both a clever visual reference to the narrative's outcome and an opportunity for David to demonstrate his sophisticated understanding of classical form. The study of antique sculpture was the cornerstone of all instruction and doctrine at the Academy, but it would have held a special importance to David, who had studied with Joseph-Marie Vien, the most rigorously classical French artist of the mid-18th century. Apollo and Diana attacking the Children of Niobe would enrich the strengths of our 18th-century French collection while addressing some of its weaknesses. The painting would serve as the bridge between the Rococo brilliance of Pierre and the Neo-classical sobriety of Giroust. As a near-contemporary to the still-lifes of Anne Vallayer-Coster (1776) and the monumental landscape of Vernet (1774-75), it would add to our already rich representation of that transitional cultural moment. It would also complement the Michael L. Rosenberg Collection, which offers an exceptionally thorough overview of the major developments of 18th-century French painting yet remains relatively thin in the middle decades of the century, from the 1730s to the 1770s. It is also worth noting that if acquired, the work under consideration would become only the second painting by David in a public collection in Texas, the other example being a late work, The Anger of Achilles of 1819, in the collection of the Kimbell Art Museum since 1980.
Niobe, the queen of Thebes, shelters her youngest daughter from the arrows of Apollo and Diana, who have already slaughtered her other children. Their corpses litter the foreground of the painting. This violent scene, drawn from Ovid's Metamorphoses, illustrates what ensues when Niobe refuses to sacrifice to the goddess Latona, the mother of Apollo and Diana, and boasts about her own wealth, power, and fertility. As punishment, the goddess orders her children to kill Niobe's seven daughters and seven sons. Niobe was later turned into a block of marble that forever continued to shed tears.
Jacques-Louis David completed this painting when he was only twenty-four as part of his second bid to win the Prix de Rome, the ultimate prize for a student of the French Académie Royale and a prize that conferred three years of study in Rome. Each year, an elite group of art students was assigned a subject from classical history, literature, or the Bible, and were given two months to complete finished paintings. David was deeply disappointed when he failed to win the prize on his second attempt with Apollo and Diana Attacking the Children of Niobe, and he tried to commit suicide by starving himself to death. Fortunately, a fellow artist persuaded him to return to his studies at the Academy, and he finally won the prize in 1774.
Heather MacDonald
The Lillian and James H. Clark Associate Curator of European Art
June 2007
Jacques-Louis David completed this painting for his second bid to win the Grand Prix, the ultimate prize for students at the Académie Royale. Each year, an elite group of art students was assigned a subject and given two months to submit finished paintings. The prize was three years of study in Rome. In 1772 the assigned subject was drawn from the tragic story of Niobe in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In his ambitious composition, David catalogues the varied and gruesome deaths of Niobe’s children at the vengeful hands of Apollo and Diana with vivid painterly intensity. Although only twentyfour at the time, David already demonstrates the command of anatomy and gift for visual narrative that would make him the leading history painter in Europe in the following decades. Deeply disappointed when his painting did not win, David threatened suicide. He competed twice more before finally winning the prize in 1774.
Bonnie Pitman, ed., "Apollo and Diana Attacking the Children of Niobe," in Dallas Museum of Art: A Guide to the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 169.
David, Jacques-Louis (French, 1748-1825)
Cultures
Geography
Place of origin: Paris (France): TGN: 7008038
Process/materials
Historical periods
Individuals
Subject terms
RELATED OBJECTS
PROVENANCE
AUDIO ASSETS
VIDEO ASSETS
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