Circle of Michelangelo Maestri – Zeuxis and the most beautiful girls of Croton

Circle of Michelangelo Maestri

ZEUXIS AND THE MOST BEAUTIFUL GIRLS OF THE CITY OF KROTON

Rome, late 18th century
Watercolour and gouache over black chalk on sturdy drawing paper
24.6 x 32.2 cm

The following artistic legend is depicted: The inhabitants of Croton, today’s Crotone in southern Italy (in ancient times Magna Graecia), decided to furnish the temple of Iuno Lacinia with paintings of special value. They commissioned the most respected painter, Zeuxis of Heraclea, for a large sum of money. He wanted to paint a picture of Helen, the epitome of female beauty. To this end, the Crotonians were to show him their most beautiful maidens, from whom he selected the five most attractive. He believed that he could not find everything he needed to depict beauty in a single body, because nature had not created any individual being that was perfect in all its parts (Cicero, De Invenzione II,1).