The Muse Calliope

Image credit: The Bowes Museum

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Notes

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This painting represents one of the nine muses, daughters of Jupiter and Mnemosyne. The Florentine painter Cesare Dandini followed the description of Calliope, Muse of epic poetry, prescribed in Cesare Ripa's ‘Iconologia’ (1603). Dandini's works show a combination of restrained theatricality and idealised classicism that suited the tastes of his patrons at the court of Lorenzo de' Medici. The rhetorical gesture, and the animation with which the elegant half-length female figure addresses the viewer, are characteristic features of the works he produced during the final decades of his career.
The Uffizi owns a personification of ‘Comedy’ by Dandini, which suggests the possibility of a series of images of the muses to which this painting might belong.

The Bowes Museum

Barnard Castle

Title

The Muse Calliope

Date

c.1640–1650

Medium

oil on canvas

Measurements

H 78.7 x W 58.7 cm

Accession number

B.M.1004

Acquisition method

bequeathed by the Founders, 1885

Work type

Painting

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The Bowes Museum

Barnard Castle, County Durham DL12 8NP England

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