Largely forgotten today, De Lairesse was celebrated in his lifetime as a painter and advocate for an idealizing manner based on the study of classical antiquity. This work, likely destined to hang over the mantelpiece in a grand Amsterdam home, depicts the sun god consorting with the goddess of the dawn, a popular subject in French and Italian painting at the time. The attractively individualized young faces have led to speculation that they may be disguised portraits of a newly married couple.
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Title:Apollo and Aurora
Artist:Gerard de Lairesse (Dutch, Liège 1641–1711 Amsterdam)
Date:1671
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:80 1/2 x 76 1/8 in. (204.5 x 193.4 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Gift of Manuel E. and Ellen G. Rionda, 1943
Object Number:43.118
Inscription: Signed and dated (lower left): G. Lairesse f. . . 1671
?Nicolas Pancras, Amsterdam (1671–d. 1678); ?his widow, Petronella de Waert, Amsterdam (1678–d. 1709); ?their son, Gerbrand Nicolasz. Pancras, Amsterdam (1709–d. 1716; his estate sale, Amsterdam, April 7, 1716, no. 2, as "Apollo en Aurora," for fl. 60); Mrs. S. M. Pike, New York, and/or her daughter, Mrs. James D. Goin, New York (before 1903); by descent to Mr. and Mrs. Manuel E. (Ellen Goin) Rionda, Alpine, N.J. (until 1943)
Amsterdam. Rijksmuseum. "The Glory of the Golden Age," April 15–September 17, 2000, no. 200.
Dordrechts Museum. "Greek Gods and Heroes in the Age of Rubens and Rembrandt," February 3–May 8, 2001, no. 44 (as "Helios and Eos").
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Age of Rembrandt: Dutch Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," September 18, 2007–January 6, 2008, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "In Praise of Painting: Dutch Masterpieces at The Met," October 16, 2018–October 4, 2020, no catalogue.
Gerard Hoet. Catalogus of Naamlyst van Schilderyen, met derzelver pryzen, zedert een langen reeks van Jaaren zoo in Holland als op andere Plaatzen in het openbaar verkogt. Vol. 1, The Hague, 1752, p. 186, no. 2, as sold for fl. 60 in the Pancras sale of 1716, probably this picture.
Josephine L. Allen and Elizabeth E. Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1954, p. 58.
J. J. M. Timmers. A History of Dutch Life and Art. [London], 1959, p. 137, pl. 428, as "Apotheosis of the House of Orange-Nassau".
D. P. Snoep. "Gerard Lairesse als plafond- en kamerschilder." Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 18 (December 1970), p. 214 n. 4, rejects the title "Apotheosis of the House of Orange," and suggests that the figures of Apollo and Aurora are perhaps portraits.
Peter C. Sutton. A Guide to Dutch Art in America. Grand Rapids, Mich., 1986, pp. 182–83, fig. 259.
Beatrijs Brenninkmeyer-de Rooij in Ben Broos. De Rembrandt à Vermeer: Les peintres hollandais au Mauritshuis de La Haye. Exh. cat., Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris. The Hague, 1986, p. 66, fig. 41, contrasts it to Jacob van Campen's work of the same subject of about twenty years earlier (Huis ten Bosch, The Hague).
Jacques Hendrick. La peinture au pays de Liège: XVIe, XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles. Liège, 1987, p. 178, fig. 159 (color), as "Apothéose de la Maison de Nassau (ou, Apollon et Flore)".
Alain Roy. Gérard de Lairesse (1640–1711). Paris, 1992, pp. 71, 245–46, no. P. 67, ill. p. 245 and colorpl. 10, as "Apollon et l'Aurore (Apothéose de Guillaume d'Orange)".
Jane Davidson Reid with the assistance of Chris Rohmann inThe Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1300–1900s. New York, 1993, vol. 2, p. 174.
Lyckle de Vries. "Review of Roy 1992." Oud-Holland 109, no. 1/2 (1995), p. 114, rejects Roy's identification of Apollo with William III [William of Orange].
Jacobine Huisken et al., ed. Jacob van Campen: Het klassieke ideaal in de Gouden Eeuw. Amsterdam, 1995, pp. 79, 254 n. 139, fig. 64.
Wayne Franits. "Young Women Preferred White to Brown: Some Remarks on Nicolaes Maes and the Cultural Context of Late Seventeenth-Century Dutch Portraiture." Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 46 (1995), pp. 407, 415 n. 64, fig. 8, finds Roy's [see Ref. 1992] identification of the picture as an allegorical portrait of William of Orange unconvincing, and suggests that the work may represent "a 'portrait historié' of an unknown husband and wife in the guise of Apollo and Aurora".
Leen Huet inHistoire de la peinture en Belgique du XIVe siècle à nos jours. Ed. Philippe Roberts-Jones. Brussels, 1995, p. 171, ill. p. 195 (color).
Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 341, ill.
Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann inThe Robert Lehman Collection. Vol. 2, Fifteenth- to Eighteenth-Century European Paintings. New York, 1998, pp. 145, 147 n. 32.
León Krempel. Studien zu den datierten Gemälden des Nicolaes Maes (1634–1693). Petersberg, Germany, 2000, pp. 98, 131 n. 183, fig. 462.
Marlies Enklaar et al. inGreek Gods and Heroes in the Age of Rubens and Rembrandt. Ed. Peter Schoon and Sander Paarlberg. Exh. cat., National Gallery/Alexandros Soutzos Museum. Athens, [2000], pp. 61, 186, 244, 278, 367, no. 44, ill. pp. 13 (color detail) and 245 (color overall).
Walter Liedtke et al. Vermeer and the Delft School. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2001, p. 400 n. 4.
Horton A. Johnson. "Gerard de Lairesse: Genius Among the Treponemes." Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 97 (June 2004), p. 302, fig. 2.
Walter Liedtke. "Gerard de Lairesse and Jacob de Wit 'in situ'." The Learned Eye: Regarding Art, Theory, and the Artist's Reputation: Essays for Ernst van de Wetering. Ed. Marieke van den Doel et al. Amsterdam, 2005, pp. 193, 195, 199, 203 n. 22, fig. 2 (color), ill. p. 179 (color detail).
Esmée Quodbach. "The Age of Rembrandt: Dutch Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 65 (Summer 2007), pp. 49, 55, fig. 58 (color).
Walter Liedtke. Dutch Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2007, vol. 1, pp. xi–xii, 415–21, no. 104, colorpl. 104, fig. 107 (color detail); vol. 2, pp. 897, 954, tentatively identifies the sitters as Gerbrand Pancras and one of his sisters, probably Maria Pancras.
Mariët Westermann inRembrandt, pintor de historias. Ed. Alejandro Vergara. Exh. cat., Museo Nacional del Prado. Madrid, 2008, p. 93, fig. 49 (color).
Assistant Curator Adam Eaker welcomes readers to In Praise of Painting: Dutch Masterpieces at The Met, a new exhibition that expands the narrative of one of the most celebrated chapters in art history.
Gerard de Lairesse (Dutch, Liège 1641–1711 Amsterdam)
mid-17th–early 18th century
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