The Education of Achilles
1727.Not on display
King Philip V of Spain’s last son, Luis Antonio Jaime, was born on 25 July 1727. To celebrate the occasion, the Piazza di Spagna in Rome was decorated with an artificial boulder of considerable dimensions representing the the moment when Thetis delivered her son, Achilles, to Chiron, the centaur responsible for educating him and sending him to the temple of Glory. This allegory of the education of a Spanish prince was established by association with Achilles and his master, Chiron, who also taught such mythical figures as Acteon, Aesculapius and Jason. The same decoration appears in a panoramic view of Piazza Navona during those festivities, from the Spanish royal collection and due to Giovanni Paolo Panini, is kept at Apsley House (London, WM1641), which also captures the popular celebration that accompanies the event.
The Museo del Prado’s work reproduces the central theme of this ephemeral decoration, and both its subject and author were correctly identified by Jesús Urrea Fernández in 1977, when he related the painting to one that Antonio Ponz, one of the most important eighteenth-century Spanish art critics, saw in the queen’s chamber at the Buen Retiro Palace. Urrea Fernández’s attribution to Conca remains unchallenged, as Ponz knew the artist well enough for us deem his opinion valid.
Surprisingly, in his Voyage to Spain (1772-94), Ponz affirms that the work depicts Fireworks made at the Piazza di Spagna in Rome, which cannot be deduced by merely looking at the painting. Ponz very probably knew the engraving of the same subject by Filippo Vasconi, which describes it as a macchina per fuoco artificiato (fireworks machine), and undoubtedly attributes the original drawing to Conca. This information suggests that the Museo del Prado’s painting was the basis for Vasconi’s engraving and, as Ferdinando Arisi supposed, Panini must have had it in mind when he made the painting now in London. Moreover, the print allows us to confirm what would now seem definitive: its attribution to Conca and the date of 1727. Like the painting in London, the present work must have been commissioned in Rome by Cardinal Bentivoglio. This painting has been extended on all four sides, which not only alters its original dimensions, but also partially hides its meaning by setting the scene on an indeterminate surface that Royal inventories identified as the Amphitrite sea. In the 1734 inventory of the Alcázar in Madrid, it is baselessly attributed to Salvator Rosa (Úbeda de los Cobos, A.: Italian Masterpieces. From Spain´s Royal Court, Museo del Prado, 2014, p. 256).
Úbeda de los Cobos, Andrés, Sebastiano Conca 'The education of Achilles'. En: Italian masterpieces from Spain's royal court, Museo del Prado, National Gallery of Victoria Thames & Hudson, 2014, p.256
