Fig. 43.—Niobe and Her Youngest Daughter.
In A.D. 1583 a large number of statues representing this subject were found in Rome, and were purchased by the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who placed them in the Villa Medici. In 1775 they were removed to the Palace of the Uffizi, in Florence, where an apartment was assigned to them. The figures were restored, and each one placed on its own pedestal, which work was not completed until 1794.
The group must have had originally seventeen figures—Niobe and fourteen children, a pedagogue and a female nurse. Now there are but twelve—Niobe, six sons, four daughters, and the pedagogue. At first it was supposed that these figures ornamented the temple pediment, but it is now thought that they stood on an undulating rocky base, with a background at a little distance. Niobe is the central figure, in any case, and the children were fleeing toward her from either side; she is the only one represented in such a way as to present the full face to the beholder (Fig. 43). But we shall better understand our subject if I recount as concisely as possible the story of Niobe, which, as you know, is a Grecian myth. Niobe was the daughter of Tantalus, and was born on Mount Sipylus. When a child Niobe played with Lato, or Latona, who afterward married the great god Jupiter, or Zeus. Niobe became the wife of Amphion, and had a very happy life; she was the mother of seven sons and seven daughters, and all this prosperity made her forget that she was mortal, and she dared to be insolent even to the gods themselves. Lato had but two children, the beautiful Apollo and the archer-queen of heaven, called Diana, or Artemis.
Fig. 44.—Brother and Sister.
Amphion and Niobe were the King and Queen of Thebes, and when the worship of Lato was established in that city Niobe was very angry. She thought of Lato as her playmate and not a goddess, and was so imprudent as to drive in her chariot to the temple and command the Theban women not to join in this worship. Niobe also asserted that she was superior to this Lato, who had but two children, while she had fourteen lovely sons and daughters, any one of which was worthy of honor. All this so enraged Lato that she begged Apollo, who was the god of the silver bow, and Diana, her huntress daughter, to take revenge on Niobe. Obedient to her commands, Apollo and Artemis descended to earth, and in one day slew all the children of Niobe. Then this proud mother, left alone, could do nothing but weep, and this she did continually until Jupiter took pity on her and turned her into stone, and whirled her away from Thebes to Mount Sipylus, the scene of her happy childhood. In this picture of Niobe she clasps her youngest child, who has fled to her for protection.
Fig. 45.—The Eldest Daughter.
