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Hades and Persephone

© Foundation Oskar Kokoschka/DACS 2024. Image credit: The Courtauld

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Notes

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This work was commissioned by the collector Count Antoine Seilern (1901–1978) for the entrance hall ceiling of his London house, 56 Princes Gate, in South Kensington. Seilern had begun to collect Kokoschka’s work during the Second World War when both men were living in London as Austrian émigrés, having escaped Nazi occupation in Central Europe. After the war, Princes Gate became a centre for scholars and students who came to see Seilern’s important Old Master paintings and drawings. ‘The Prometheus Triptych’ offered a powerful statement of Kokoschka’s commitment to continuing the Baroque traditions of artists such as Rubens and Tiepolo whose work formed the central part of the Princes Gate collection. In ‘The Prometheus Triptych’, Kokoschka revives Baroque qualities of vigorous figural movement and emotional intensity.

The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

London

Title

Hades and Persephone

Date

1950

Medium

oil & tempera on canvas

Measurements

H 238 x W 233.8 cm

Accession number

P.1978.PG.210.1

Acquisition method

bequeathed by Count Antoine Seilern, 1978

Work type

Painting

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The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

Somerset House, Strand, London, Greater London WC2R 0RN England

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