Jupiter and Mercury reveal themselves to Philemon and Baucis

Elie-Honoré Montagny

1809 · Pen and brown ink, brush and brown and gray washes, with touches of white gouache. Laid down. Squared in graphite. · Drawings and Prints

This drawing depicts the story of Baucis and Philemon, which is taken from Ovid’s Metamorphoses (VIII,611). Its central theme is the virtue of hospitality. Jupiter and Mercury—in disguise—are turned away from every house in the village before the elderly couple invite them in and offer to share their meager meal. Montagny does not show the gods in disguise, but illustrates instead the moment when the divinity of the guests is revealed to the couple. Upon their death, they were transformed into a pair of intertwined trees: one oak and one linden. Elie Honoré Montagny was a student of Jacques Louis David. He resided in Naples from 1804 to 1815 and it is to this period that his most famour works can be dated. A related painting, with a number of differences in the composition, is in the Palazzo Reale, Caserta, a palace near Naples.

Artist

Elie-Honoré Montagny

Date

1809

Medium

Pen and brown ink, brush and brown and gray washes, with touches of white gouache. Laid down. Squared in graphite.

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Anonymous Gift, in memory of Sassan Sanai MD, 2018