Saturday, September 30, 2017

Hylas

Roman mosaic
Hylas and the Nymphs
2nd century BC
Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, Rome

Roman mosaic
Hylas and the Nymphs
AD 200-300-
Musée Gallo-Romain de Saint-Romain-en-Gal, Vienne, France

Roman mosaic
Hylas and the Nymphs
AD 300-350
Palazzo Massimo alle Terme. Rome

copy of a drawing by Giulio Romano
Hylas and the Nymphs
16th century
 drawing
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Pietro Santi Bartoli after Giulio Romano
Capture of Hylas by the Nymphs
ca. 1655-1700
etching
British Museum

HYLAS AND THE WATER NYMPHS

    And straight he was aware
Of water in a hollow place, low down,
Where the thick sward shone with blue celandine,
And bright green maiden-hair, still dry in dew,
And parsley rich. And at that hour it chanced
The nymphs unseen were dancing in the fount –
The sleepless nymphs, reverenced of housing men,
Winning Eunica; Malis, apple-cheeked;
And, like a night-bedewed rose, Nichea.
Down stepped the boy,  in haste to give his urn
Its fill, and pushed it in the fount; when, lo!
Fair hands were on him – fair, and very fast;
For all the gentle souls that haunted there
Were drawn in love's sweet yearning tow'rds the boy;
And so he dropped within the darksome well –
Dropped like a star, that, on a summer eve,
Slides in ethereal beauty to the sea.

– from an Idyll of Theocritus, translated by Leigh Hunt (1844)

Francesco Furini
Hylas and the Nymphs
1630
oil on canvas
Palazzo Pitti, Florence

Baldassare Franceschini
Hylas with water-vessel
before 1689
oil on canvas
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart

Solomon Gessner
Hylas and the Nymphs
1771
etching
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Anonymous French painter
Hylas and Nymph
19th century
oil on canvas
private collection

John Gibson
Hylas surprised by the Naiades
1827-36
marble
Tate Britain

"This life-size statue group in white marble presents a scene from Greek mythology in which the boy Hylas, the companion of Hercules, goes to collect water from a stream, and is lured into the depths by water nymphs who are entranced by his beauty.  The nymphs (Naiades) simultaneously gaze admiringly and move to physically detain the boy.  . . . "

"Gibson began his career as a cabinet-maker in Liverpool before moving to London in 1817.  Following the advice of John Flaxman, London's leading neoclassical sculptor, he traveled to Rome, arriving in October of that year.  Having received training from the Italian master Antonio Canova and the Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen (who also made a relief of this subject), Gibson produced  works based on the close study of Greek and Roman antiquity.  He was commissioned to produce this work in May 1826 but it took many years to complete.  The delay was caused by Gibson's patron, the statesman William Haldimand, who decided to withdraw his interest.  In 1832 the Liverpool Echo reported to its readers that the work was almost complete.  It was finally exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1837, and was given to the nation as part of the Vernon Gift in 1847." 

– curator's notes from Tate Britain

William Callio Roffe after John Gibson
Hylas and the Nymphs
(
John Gibson's marble sculpture) 
1854
stipple-engraving
British Museum

Bertel Thorvaldsen
Hylas and the Nymphs
before 1844
marble relief
Thorvaldsen Museum, Copenhagen

John Sartain after Henry Howard
Hylas and the Nymphs
before 1897
engraving
New York Public Library

Henry Alfred Pegram
Hylas and Water Nymph
(statue for fountain)

1922
bronze
Regent's Park, London

Adolfo De Carolis
Hylas and the Nymphs
1916
chiaroscuro woodcut
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC