Mount Athos Carved as a Monument to Alexander the Great

Public Domain

1796

Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes
French, 1750-1819

Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes, a leading landscape artist in late-18th-century France, sought to elevate the art of landscape to the level of history painting. In the hierarchy of subjects set by the French artistic establishment, the painting of inspiring religious and historical narratives was placed higher than the imitation of nature. Valenciennes followed the 17th-century precedent of Nicolas Poussin by imbuing his landscapes with moral content. This work and its companion, Alexander at the Tomb of Cyrus the Great, address questions of fame and mortality through episodes from the life of Alexander the Great (356–323 B.C.). Here Valenciennes depicted an unrealized project to perpetuate Alexander’s glory—a monumental image of the ruler carved into Mount Athos.

Status: On View, Gallery 218
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Pierre Henri de Valenciennes
Title: Mount Athos Carved as a Monument to Alexander the Great
Place: France (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1796
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: Inscribed lower right: P. Valenciennes / [...] 1796
Dimensions: 41.9 × 91.4 cm (16 1/2 × 36 in.)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by Mrs. Harold T. Martin
Reference Number: 1983.36
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/100061/manifest.json

F. P. Seguier, A Critical and Commercial Dictionary of the Works of Painters (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1870), p. 211.
Ralph N. James, Painters and Their Works (London: L. U. Gill, 1897), vol. 3, p. 154.
Werner Oechslin, “Dinocrates and the Myth of the Megalomaniacal Institution of Architecture,” Daidalos 4 (1982), pp. 12–13 (ill.), pp. 22, 26 n. 7.
“French Paintings Recently Acquired by The Art Institute of Chicago,” Burlington Magazine 126, 976 (1984), p. 463, fig. 86.
Margaret Smith in Alan Wintermute, ed., Claude to Corot: The Development of Landscape Painting in France, exh. cat. (New York: Colnaghi, 1990), pp. 250, under cat. 52, 256 (ill.), 258, under cat. 55.
Martin Warnke, Political Landscape: The Art History of Nature (London: Reaktion Books, 1994), pp. 90, 102 (ill.).
Susan Wise and Malcolm Warner, French and British Paintings from 1600 to 1800 in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Collection (Art Institute of Chicago/Princeton University Press, 1996), pp. 146–52 (ill.).
Graham Speake, Mount Athos: Renewal in Paradise (New Haven, Conn; London: Yale University Press, 2002) pp. 14–5 (ill.).

Art Institute of Chicago, The Art of the Edge: European Frames, 1300–1900, October 17–December 14, 1986, cat. 56.

James Hunt (died 1801), London, offered for sale, Christie’s, London, February 5, 1802, lot 62, bought in [according to Maria Wilson of Christie’s, letter of January 9, 1996, to Larry Feinberg, in curatorial files]; Hunt family, London. Reverend George Augustus Frederick Hart (died 1872), M. A., Vicar of Arundel, Tower House, Arundel, Sussex; by descent to his niece Catherine (Mrs. John Lord); sold at Tower House, Arundel, Sotheby’s, May 20–21, 1873, lot 130, to G. Fry for £36 [British Museum annot. cat.]. Alderman Philip Spowart (died 1945), Berwick-upon-Tweed, from c. 1937 [according to recollection of Alan G. Burns, letter of February 9, 1988, in curatorial file]; his widow, Anne Nicholson Spowart (née Wood); given to her nephew, Alan G. Burns, Berwick-upon-Tweed, 1960 [Alan G. Burns letters of April 4, 1984, and February 9, 1988, in curatorial file]; sold, Henry Spencer and Sons, Retford, Nottinghamshire, November 9, 1978, lot 212, to Crozier acting on behalf of Trafalgar Galleries and P. and D. Colnaghi, London, 1978 [A. G. E. Marriot letter of April 10, 1984, and notes in curatorial file]; transferred to Colnaghi, New York, 1982; sold to the Art Institute, 1983.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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