Apelles Painting the Portrait of Campaspe

According to an ancient Roman story, when the Greek painter Apelles fell in love with his sitter, Campaspe, Alexander the Great’s favourite concubine, the emperor gifted her to the artist. Tiepolo tells this tale through a web of gazes that includes the artist to his subject, his subject to her portrait and the little dog out to us, the viewer. Cleverly, Tiepolo depicted himself as Apelles and his wife, Cecilia, as Campaspe. Some identify the Black attendant as Alim, an enslaved African person in the Tiepolo household. The painting’s date, however, makes this unlikely.