* Andrea Appiani Milan 1754 -1817

The present work is a study or modello for Appiani's painting of Olympus, datable to 1806, today in the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan (oil on canvas, 45 by 136 cm.; reproduced in A. Cera, La pittura neoclassica italiana, Milan 1987, no. 45). Olympus was originally designed (as a lunette-shaped overdoor) for the Gabinetto dell'Imperatore in the Palazzo Reale, Milan, but was never installed.  A similar painting depicting Parnassus, also part of the same decorative scheme, is recorded but remains untraced. On May 26, 1805, Napoleon was crowned King of Italy and, having appointed Appiani as primo pittore (court painter) and official portrait-painter, he commissioned from him numerous works destined for the Palazzo Reale (for a discussion of the commission see A. Zanchi, Andrea Appiani, Bologna 1995, pp. 181ff.). As with many of Appiani's paintings commissioned by Napoleon - such as, for example, the allegorical portrait in the Earl of Rosebery's collection (reproduced in color in Il Neoclassicismo in Italia. Da Tiepolo a Canova, exhibition catalogue, Milan, Palazzo Reale, March 2 - July 28, 2002, p. 354) - Olympus would have been seen as a rather transparent allegory of Napoleon's imperial power.

A monochromatic study by Appiani for the composition of Olympus, in charcoal and pastel on prepared canvas, is in the Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Milan.