Page:Anecdotes of painters, engravers, sculptors and architects, and curiosities of art (IA anecdotesofpaint01spoo).pdf/43

 *ror replaced it with a copy by a painter named Dorotheus. This happened about 350 years after it was executed, and what then became of it is not known. This celebrated painting, upon which every writer who has noticed it has bestowed unqualified praise, represented Venus naked, rising out of the ocean, squeezing the water from her hair with her fingers, while her only veil was the silver shower that fell from her shining locks. This picture is said to have been painted from Campaspe, a beautiful slave of Apelles, formerly the favorite of Alexander. The king had ordered Apelles to paint her naked portrait, and perceiving that the painter was smitten with the charms of his beautiful model, he gave her to him, contenting himself with the painting. He commenced a second Venus for the people of Coös, which, according to Pliny, would have surpassed the first, had not its completion been interrupted by the death of the painter: the only parts finished were the head and bust. Two portraits of Alexander painted by Apelles, were dedicated by Augustus, in the most conspicuous part of the forum bearing his name; in one was Alexander, with Castor and Pollux, and a figure of Victory; in the other was Alexander in a triumphal car, accompanied by a figure of War, with her hands pinioned behind her. The Emperor Claudius took out the heads of Alexander, and substituted those of Augustus. The following portraits are also mentioned among the most famous works of this great artist: Clitus