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Lot Essay
This picture and its companion were one of a series of four pictures commissioned by John Bowles showing different types of female love.
Phryne was a famous Athenian courtesan and seductress of the 4th Century B.C., who acquired so much wealth by her beauty that she offered to rebuild the walls of Thebes if she might put on them the inscription that 'Alexander destroyed them, but Phryne the hetaera rebuilt them'. It is recorded that when she was being tried on a capital charge, her defender, who failed to move the judges by his eloquence asked her to uncover her bosom and that she did so and the judges, struck by her beauty, acquitted her on the spot. She was also said to have been the model for Praxiteles' Cnidian Venus and also for Apelles picture of Venus rising from the sea. Zenocrates (396-314 B.C.) was a disciple of Plato, who combined Pythagoreanism with Platonism, who was noted for his continence and his contempt for wealth. Phryne decided to attempt to seduce Zenocrates and pretended to have fled to his house from some robbers. He invited her to share his narrow bed and she tried everything to seduce him but he remained steadfast and eventually she was forced to relent. She subsequently related that he was not a man but a statue.
John Bowles who is recorded as having commissioned this and the following lot was a member of the Bowles family of North Aston. A connoiseur with considerable means, he became one of Angelica Kauffmann's most important patrons, and the largest collector of her works in England. On his death his collection and fortune passed to his sister Rebecaa, Lady Rushout, whose husband Sir John Rushout became Lord Northwick in 1797 and their son assumed the name Bowles in addition to that of Rushout.
We are grateful to Dr. Bettina Baumgärtel for her assistance with this catalogue entry.
Phryne was a famous Athenian courtesan and seductress of the 4th Century B.C., who acquired so much wealth by her beauty that she offered to rebuild the walls of Thebes if she might put on them the inscription that 'Alexander destroyed them, but Phryne the hetaera rebuilt them'. It is recorded that when she was being tried on a capital charge, her defender, who failed to move the judges by his eloquence asked her to uncover her bosom and that she did so and the judges, struck by her beauty, acquitted her on the spot. She was also said to have been the model for Praxiteles' Cnidian Venus and also for Apelles picture of Venus rising from the sea. Zenocrates (396-314 B.C.) was a disciple of Plato, who combined Pythagoreanism with Platonism, who was noted for his continence and his contempt for wealth. Phryne decided to attempt to seduce Zenocrates and pretended to have fled to his house from some robbers. He invited her to share his narrow bed and she tried everything to seduce him but he remained steadfast and eventually she was forced to relent. She subsequently related that he was not a man but a statue.
John Bowles who is recorded as having commissioned this and the following lot was a member of the Bowles family of North Aston. A connoiseur with considerable means, he became one of Angelica Kauffmann's most important patrons, and the largest collector of her works in England. On his death his collection and fortune passed to his sister Rebecaa, Lady Rushout, whose husband Sir John Rushout became Lord Northwick in 1797 and their son assumed the name Bowles in addition to that of Rushout.
We are grateful to Dr. Bettina Baumgärtel for her assistance with this catalogue entry.