Selene and Endymion
Also titled Selene en Endymion
Gerard de Lairesse (Liège, 1641–1711)
c. 1680
- Medium
- canvas, oil paint (paint)
- Classification
- painting
- Dimensions
- height 177 cm x width 118.5 cm
- Museum
- Rijksmuseum
- Rights
- Public Domain Mark, as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
About this work
The chaste goddess of the moon, Selene (or Diana), is in love with the shepherd Endymion. Only at night when he is asleep does she quietly creep down to him, accompanied by Cupid, whose torch symbolizes burning love. This painting was (appropriately) hung in Mary Stuart’s bedchamber in Soestdijk Palace, for Lairesse felt that the function and decoration of a room should correspond.
