Plaque with Apollo and Daphne

The story of Daphne is told by the Roman poet Ovid (43 BC-AD 17) in "The Metamorphoses." Cupid, god of love, shot the god Apollo with a gold-tipped arrow, kindling his love for the nymph Daphne, but Cupid shot her with one tipped with lead, stifling love. Pursued by Apollo, Daphne prayed to her father, a river god, to save her, and she was transformed into a laurel tree. Ovid's tales were popular for their eroticism. In addition, the idea of metamorphosis, a fundamental, divinely sanctioned change of state, offered a way of thinking about the creative act, as in the transformation of a chunk of copper ore into a bronze statuette. Jacques Laudin, who monogrammed this plaque, adapted the composition from an engraving of 1589 after a drawing by the Dutch artist Hendrick Goltzius. The frame is original.