London’s National Gallery Gifted Angelica Kauffman Painting of Achilles

London’s National Gallery Gifted Angelica Kauffman Painting of Achilles

Thanks to a gift from a pair of Dallas-based art collectors, theNational Galleryin London has added a painting by the 18th century Swiss portraitist and polyglot Angelica Kauffmann to its permanent collection. The painting is Kauffmann’s first history painting in oils to become part of a current U.K. national collection.

Kauffmann’s painting,Achilles discovered among the Daughters of Lycomedes, 1787-88, was given to the National Gallery alongside two other works by Swiss artists:Portrait of Louis Montchal, 1885, by Ferdinand Hodler andFour Large Trees, ca. 1850, by Alexandre Calame. The Dallas collectors who made the gift, Richard and Luba Barrett, specialize in Swiss art dating from the 15th to early 20th centuries. In 2018, the Barretts made a gift of over 400 works of Swiss art to the University of Texas at Dallas.

“We are very grateful to Richard and Luba Barrett for this generous gift of three outstanding pictures by Swiss artists from the 18th and 19th centuries,” Sir Gabriele Finaldi, the Director of London’s National Gallery, said in a statement. “As well as a striking portrait by Hodler and a fine landscape by Calame we have been given the first work by Angelica Kauffmann to enter the National Gallery’s current collection.”

Kauffmann, one of only two female founding members of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1768 along with painter Mary Moser, was one of the most successful female painters of the 18th century. She was well-regarded for her portraits but best known for her commitment to painting historical scenes from mythology and literature, as well as her frequent use of female protagonists. 

Kauffmann’s Achilles is the first oil painting by the artist to become part of a national collection in the United Kingdom since 1835, when another Kauffmann painting was gifted to the National Gallery before being transferred to the National Gallery of British Art. That painting was subsequently lent to Guildhall in Plymouth, and it is believed to have eventually been destroyed in the Nazi bombing raids on Plymouth in 1941. 

Achilles discovered among the Daughters of Lycomedes depicts Achilles, the Greek hero of the Trojan War, disguised as a woman. In Kauffmann’s rendering, Achilles wears a white ribbon in his red hair as he brandishes a sword and shield. He’s flanked by his wife, Princess Deidamia, who looks fearfully up at her husband’s encroaching enemies. After arming himself, Achilles is recognized by his assailants. The painting, which is technically a modello, or detailed oil study, was commissioned by the Empress of Russia Catherine the Great.  

Achilles is now on view at the National Gallery in Room 37.