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| Adriaen van der Werff Judgement of Paris 1716 oil on panel Dulwich Picture Gallery, London |
"The Cypria told the story of the Judgement of Paris, often mentioned in subsequent literature. Incited to rivalry by Eris, the goddesses Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite appointed Paris to decide between them. They were brought to him by Hermes, and, bribed by the promise of Helen, he chose Aphrodite as the most beautiful. . . . In art various episodes from his career are represented. The Judgement is especially popular, and is identifiable as early as the 7th century."
– Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd edition (1996), edited by Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth
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| Pietro de' Pietri Putto and seated youth before 1716 drawing for fresco British Museum |
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| Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier Chariot of Apollo ceiling design for Count Bielinski's Cabinet, Warsaw 1734 watercolor, gouache Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Louis Joseph Le Lorrain Architectural fantasy - Vase, Herm & Colonnade ca. 1750 wash drawing Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Louis Joseph Le Lorrain Ruin Fantasy ca. 1752 wash drawing Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
Louis Joseph Le Lorrain (1715-1759) – Painter, neo-classical designer and etcher. Rome Prize in 1739, resident in Rome 1739-47, where he designed the Chinea in 1745-47 [annual ceremony in Rome with grand temporary structures built for staging of tribute presentation by Kings of Naples as vassals of the Pope]. Then Le Lorrain returned to Paris, where patronised by Caylus and Tessin. 1756-58 designed famous early neo-classical furniture for [financier and arts patron] La Live de Jully. Moved to Russia in 1758 as first director of the Academy of Arts, and died soon after his arrival.
– curator's notes from the British Museum
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| Teodoro Viero after Alessandro Algardi Decapitation of St Paul, in niche ca. 1760-1810 engraving British Museum |
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| collection of Charles Townley Satyr and Maenad with infant Bacchus in liknon or winnowing-basket, from terracotta Campagna relief ca. 1768-1805 drawing British Museum |
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| collection of Charles Townley Athena with Gorgoneion from terracotta Campagna relief ca. 1768-1805 drawing British Museum |
Charles Townley (1737-1805) – Collector and connoisseur of mainly classical antiquities. Collection purchased by the British Museum in 1805 (classical sculpture) and 1814 (other antiquities, sold by his cousin and heir Peregrine Townley).
– curator's notes from the British Museum
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| Wedgwood & Co. Plaque with Quadriga after engraved gem by Pietro Santi Bartoli ca. 1775-80 black basalt with encaustic painting in brass frame British Museum |
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| Paul Sandby Study of tree ca. 1780 watercolor Yale Center for British Art |
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| Paul Sandby Couple in a farmyard 1782 watercolor Yale Center for British Art |
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| Benjamin West Death of the Stag 1786 oil on canvas National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh |
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| Francesco Guardi Architectural capriccio before 1793 oil on panel Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide |
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| Carl Wilhelm Kolbe Satyr pursuing Nymph 1795-96 etching British Museum |
"Stage directions for a Greek play must be entirely inferred from the context. We do not know whether the boy has been standing the whole time, sitting thoughtfully on the steps, wandering about with his myrtle-branch or erect in some rapt pose, as he watches the distant sky for the down-flight of some hovering bird, or whether he walked away with the last tragic questioning about the purpose of his divinity. Did he go into the temple to gain spiritual strength? Has he been listening to the choirs inside, the harpists, the lute and flute-players? Has he stood outside the very sacred circle that surrounds the holy-of-holies, the tripod where the high-priestess, the Pythia, gives the strange two-edged answers to those who have come to learn the future, at this famous shrine? Does he himself ponder the wording of a question, which, later, he is on the point of asking: who he is, after all, and how he had got here?"
"We can only infer something of all this, but our imaginations fill out this harmonious outline. We can, if we are strictly of a purist tendency, leave the place bare, imagine the choros in hieratic posture, scarcely moving. Or we can imagine the trail of various priests, officials from the town even, visitors who may cross and re-cross, votaries with presents. The mind has full power of expanding the "romantic" life, in and out of the court, the come and go of worshippers through the great doors. Or, as I say, we may preserve the strictly "classic" outline, the great pillars, the formal tense figures of the chanting women."
– H.D., from the stage-directions for her translation of the Ion of Euripides, originally published in 1937