Page:Anecdotes of painters, engravers, sculptors and architects, and curiosities of art (IA anecdotesofpaint01spoo).pdf/47



Apelles was held in great esteem by Alexander the Great, and was admitted into the most intimate familiarity with him. He executed a portrait of this prince in the character of a thundering Jove; a piece which was finished with such skill and dexterity, that it used to be said there were "two Alexanders, the one invincible, the son of Philip, and the other inimitable, the production of Apelles." Alexander appears to have been a patron of the fine arts more from vanity than taste; and it is related, as an instance of those freedoms which Apelles was permitted to use with him, that when on one occasion he was talking in this artist's painting room very ignorantly of the art of painting, Apelles requested him to be silent lest the boys who ground his colors should laugh at him. On another occasion, when he had painted a picture of his famous war-horse, Alexander did not seem to appreciate its excellence; but Bucephalus, on seeing his own portrait, began to prance and neigh, when the painter observed that the horse was a better judge of painting than his master.

APELLES AND PROTOGENES.

Apelles, being highly delighted with a picture of Jalysus, painted by Protogenes of Rhodes, sailed thither to pay him a visit. Protogenes was gone from home, but an old woman was left watching a large piece of canvass which was fitted in a frame