Apollo and a Nymph

FRESCO FROM POMPEII.

PLATE XLIX.

IT is easy to recognise Apollo in the principal personage of this painting; but it would be difficult to assign a name to the young woman whom he is preparing to enjoy. It cannot be Daphne, for the god already wears a crown of laurel. Moreover, the mythologists have attributed to him such a number of mistresses, that it is impossible to ascertain whether the painter intended here to represent Coron is the mother of Æsculapius, Clymenes the daughter of the Ocean and the mother of Phaethon, Clytie, Leucothea, or some other.

Near Apollo we perceive a bow and arrows with a javelin: the scene is laid in a desert place.

The drawing of this fresco is, on the whole, bad; the limbs of the god's fair companion are perfectly gigantic, and the faces also are utterly devoid of expression. Nevertheless, the brightness of the colouring constitutes it one of the most remarkable paintings recently discovered at Pompeii.