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Lot Essay
After the picture in the Prado Museum, Madrid.
The subject is taken from Ovid's 'Metamophosis' (Book VI) and depicts the moment when Tereus is presented with the head of his dead son Itys. King Terues, married to Procne was to seduce her sister Philomena, and having raped Philomena he imprisoned her, cutting out her tongue so that she could not tell of the crime. Philomena wove a tapistry revealing the details to her sister Procne, who, enraged was to kill their son Itys and serve his flesh to Tereus for his dinner. On learning of the ghastly trick played on him, he pursued the two sisters trying to kill them, but before he could catch them all three were changed into birds by the gods - Tereus a hoopoe, Procne a swallow, and Philomena a nightingale.
The subject is taken from Ovid's 'Metamophosis' (Book VI) and depicts the moment when Tereus is presented with the head of his dead son Itys. King Terues, married to Procne was to seduce her sister Philomena, and having raped Philomena he imprisoned her, cutting out her tongue so that she could not tell of the crime. Philomena wove a tapistry revealing the details to her sister Procne, who, enraged was to kill their son Itys and serve his flesh to Tereus for his dinner. On learning of the ghastly trick played on him, he pursued the two sisters trying to kill them, but before he could catch them all three were changed into birds by the gods - Tereus a hoopoe, Procne a swallow, and Philomena a nightingale.