Antiochus and Stratonice

Antiochus and Stratonice is a large oil on canvas dated around 1700 and painted by the Italian artist Antonio Bellucci. Its subject comes from an ancient love story: the young Antiochus falls gravely ill after secretly falling in love with Stratonice of Syria, the new wife of his father. The scene sets duty to a parent against private passion, and the sick young man becomes the dramatic center of the composition. At roughly 2.5 by 3 metres, the canvas is generous in scale for its time. David and Ingres later returned to the same subject, which shows how much the story continued to attract painters. A notable detail is the attention Goethe paid to the picture as a young man; he described it several times in Wilhelm Meister's Journeyman Years, published in 1821. That literary connection helps explain why the work is still associated with the study of emotion in painting.

Painter

Antonio Bellucci

Date

1700

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

253 × 301 cm

Museum

Hessen Kassel Heritage, Kassel

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