Hyacinthus1.0014_Tiepolo

Hyacinthus1.0014_Tiepolo

OGCMA s.v. "Hyacinthus"
ArtsandCulture.google.com

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, 1696-1770, "The Death of Hyacinth", oil on canvas, ca. 1752-1753, Madrid, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bronemisza, inv. no. 394 (1934.29)

Classical tellings of Hyacinthus' death have Hyacinthus, Apollo's beloved, killed by an errant discus; here Tiepolo has the tragedy occur on a tennis court. The picture was included originally in the cycle of paintings decorating the residence of Karl Phillip Freiherr von Greiffenclau zu Vollrath, Fürst-Bischof von Würzburg, one of the most important and successful commissions of Tiepolo's career.

The image at right was derived from Google Arts and Culture, where a very-high definition image invites close examination.

Baroque painting of a mythological scene, men in ancient attire surround a fallen figure on an orange cloth

See Helen Morales Classical Mythology, 91: "Tiepolo's "Death of Hyacinthus" transports the myth into an 18th-century setting ... and exploits its homoeroticism with its focus on the languid male body."

OGCMA slides are designed by Roger T. Macfarlane for use in Classical Civilization 241 courses at Brigham Young University.
The present resource contains information assembled for The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1300 - 1990's, edited by J. Davidson Reid (Oxford 1994), and it is used with express permission from Oxford University press.
Address concerns or inquiries to macfarlane@byu.edu.