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Lot Essay
Silenus and the Nymph Aegle was exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy in 1848, the very year that the Pre-Raphaelites began working as a coherent group. The brotherhood's shared ideals and unique style were anticipated in the meticulous detail of Paton's renowned Oberon and Titania paintings, with both the Quarrel and the Reconciliation also exhibited at the RSA in 1847 and 1850 respectively.
This fine early picture sees the artist depicting another popular literary subject in the nineteenth century, a scene from the sixth eclogue by Virgil. While the original form derived from Greek pastoral poetry, Paton, like Virgil, has translated the theme into an Italianite setting. The poem and image detail the moment when Silenus, woodland God and cohort of Bacchus, is roused from a wine induced slumber by Chromis and Mnasylus. The youths reprimand him, fettering him with his own fallen garlands, a jocular penance for past broken promises of song. Silenus was renowned for his musical talent and his trademark cymbals hang from a nearby tree stump, bearing testament to the previous evenings revelry. Aegle, the 'fairest of the Naiads', soars above the group bearing aloft a mulberry branch (used to make and colour wine in the ancient world) with which she will stain his forehead. This nymph is evocative of the Paton's quintessential hovering fairy figure, a favoured motif both in his work of the time and Victorian Britain. Silenus relents saying 'Mark the songs you desire; for you songs, for her shall be another payment'. The festooned cow to the right illustrates the song he sings of Pasiphae (who fell in love with a white bull) and the insane daughters of Proetus (who roamed the hills lowing, believing themselves to be cattle). Virgil relates how Silenus then proceeds to sing of the origin and nature of the world in relation to Epicurean philosophy.
This fine early picture sees the artist depicting another popular literary subject in the nineteenth century, a scene from the sixth eclogue by Virgil. While the original form derived from Greek pastoral poetry, Paton, like Virgil, has translated the theme into an Italianite setting. The poem and image detail the moment when Silenus, woodland God and cohort of Bacchus, is roused from a wine induced slumber by Chromis and Mnasylus. The youths reprimand him, fettering him with his own fallen garlands, a jocular penance for past broken promises of song. Silenus was renowned for his musical talent and his trademark cymbals hang from a nearby tree stump, bearing testament to the previous evenings revelry. Aegle, the 'fairest of the Naiads', soars above the group bearing aloft a mulberry branch (used to make and colour wine in the ancient world) with which she will stain his forehead. This nymph is evocative of the Paton's quintessential hovering fairy figure, a favoured motif both in his work of the time and Victorian Britain. Silenus relents saying 'Mark the songs you desire; for you songs, for her shall be another payment'. The festooned cow to the right illustrates the song he sings of Pasiphae (who fell in love with a white bull) and the insane daughters of Proetus (who roamed the hills lowing, believing themselves to be cattle). Virgil relates how Silenus then proceeds to sing of the origin and nature of the world in relation to Epicurean philosophy.