Parnassus, Anton Raphael Mengs
This painting was a sketch for Mengs's fresco of 1761 in the central part of the ceiling of the Villa Albani in Rome, commissioned by Cardinal Alessandro Albani. We see an excellent example of how Mengs overcame Baroque traditions and turned increasingly towards the norms of Neoclassical art. In the centre is Apollo, or Apollo Musagetes, the Sun God, patron of the arts and leader of the Muses, with his attributes of a lyre, a laurel wreath upon his head and one in his hand.
