Lot Essay
Joseph Victor Ranvier was born in Lyon and studied there under Louis Janmot, a pupil of Ingres, and Irénée Richard. He began exhibiting at the Salon in 1859, and was named Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur in 1878. Ranvier is best known for his grand mythological paintings, but also painted landscapes and religious subjects.
The nymph Daphne was the first of the loves of Apollo, the Greek god of the sun, poetry, music and the embodiment of male beauty. According to Ovid, a mischievous Cupid pricked Apollo with a golden arrow of love and Daphne with a leaden arrow of repulsion. Apollo pursued the nymph relentlessly until, exhausted, she pleaded to her father, the river god Peneus, to save her. He changed her into a laurel tree, which became one of Apollo's symbols. Ranvier shows the nymph at the moment of her transformation as laurel leaves begin to sprout from her tresses. Apollo, crowned with a halo of sunlight, grasps for her in desperation, having arrived too late. His pose is almost an exact mirror image of the figure of Thetis from Ingres' Zeus and Thetis (1811; Musée Granet, Aix-en-Provence).
The nymph Daphne was the first of the loves of Apollo, the Greek god of the sun, poetry, music and the embodiment of male beauty. According to Ovid, a mischievous Cupid pricked Apollo with a golden arrow of love and Daphne with a leaden arrow of repulsion. Apollo pursued the nymph relentlessly until, exhausted, she pleaded to her father, the river god Peneus, to save her. He changed her into a laurel tree, which became one of Apollo's symbols. Ranvier shows the nymph at the moment of her transformation as laurel leaves begin to sprout from her tresses. Apollo, crowned with a halo of sunlight, grasps for her in desperation, having arrived too late. His pose is almost an exact mirror image of the figure of Thetis from Ingres' Zeus and Thetis (1811; Musée Granet, Aix-en-Provence).