Apollo and Daphne

Apollo, laurel-crowned, throws back his arm and lifts a viol - Dosso updates the god's ancient lyre to a modern stringed instrument - while far off at the left the tiny figure of Daphne already sprouts into the laurel tree as she flees him (Ovid's Metamorphoses). To escape his pursuit she is transformed, and the laurel becomes forever his sacred tree. Dosso Dossi, court painter at Ferrara in the poetic world of the epic poet Ariosto, bathes the scene in a stormy, moonlit glow, romance and melancholy thickening the air. His enchantress Circe is also in this collection.