Marine Gods Paying Homage to Love, Eustache Le Sueur

Marine Gods Paying Homage to Love, Eustache Le Sueur (1638)

Classically proportioned sea gods and goddesses, partially clad in intensely colored drapery, form a dramatic procession against a light blue sky. This painting illustrates an episode in Francesco Colonna's Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (Strife of Love in a Dream of Polyphilus), an extravagant Renaissance tale of a dream-journey through antiquity. To the left, the lovers Polyphilus and Polia are ferried to Cythera, the island of love. The sea goddess Amphitrite, reclining in a shell at the lower right, and Neptune, seated high on a shell and holding his triton, watch the boat depart from amid a crowd of figures.

Eustache Le Sueur or Lesueur was a French artist and one of the founders of the French Academy of Painting. He is known primarily for his paintings of religious subjects. He was a leading exponent of the neoclassical style of Parisian Atticism.

He was born in Paris, where he spent his entire life. His father, Cathelin Le Sueur, a turner and sculptor in wood, placed him with Vouet, in whose studio he rapidly distinguished himself.