At sotheby's in 2014, a portrait of Pandora was auctioned for £700, pandora by Former Raphael's representative Dante Gabriel Rosette. This auction also set a record for the highest price of the painter's work, so what is so special about this painting, and what is the different story behind the painting?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" Data-track="2" Who is Pandora >? </h1>
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Pandora
After Prometheus stole the tinder for the humans, Zeus was so angry that he decided to continue punishing the humans in a different way. But in what way? Zeus was caught up in painful thoughts. At this time, the Heavenly Mother Hera appeared in front of Zeus at the right time, and Zeus thought of all the sufferings he had suffered in Hera over the years, so he decided to send female mortals like the Heavenly Mother to the world, knowing that the human world was still in the golden age at that time, only men, and there were no many troubles such as birth, old age, illness and death.
So, the fire god Hephaestus pinched out the female body out of the dirt, Aphrodite, the god of love and beauty, gave her a unique appearance, the three goddesses of beauty decorated her with beautiful flowers, the goddess of wisdom Athena dressed her in the most enchanting costume and taught her to weave, the sun god Apollo made her have a charming voice, and the god made Hermes inject cunning and deception into her body. In the end Zeus gave her life and gave her a magic box, a magic box that Would not allow Pandora to open.
Pandora failed to control her curiosity, after marrying Prometheus's brother Epimetheus, secretly opened the box, so that the death, war, aging, disease, labor, poverty, pain, etc. contained in the box flowed to the human world, and Pandora, who found herself in a catastrophe, hurriedly closed the box, not knowing that the "hope" stored at the bottom of the box was left in the box forever, and the golden age of mankind ended.
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John Everett Milles, Ophelia
Going back to the first painting at the beginning of the article, we start gossiping. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais and William Holman Hunt were the three founders of the pre-Raphaelite school. Pre-Raphaelites were not a school of painting that preceded Raphael in the literal sense, but an art reform movement initiated in 1848 aimed at the creative style before Raphael.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Pandora was modeled by Jane Morris, and she and another model, Elizabeth Stale, were frequently used by pre-Raphaelite painters, and have left their mark in many of their posthumous works. When Morris and Rossetti fell in love, Rossetti and Stell were already engaged, so Morris married another painter in the school, William Morris, who was also a good friend of Rossetti. A few years later, When Stile died of excessive opiate tincture, Morris decided to divorce her husband and marry Rossetti.
Rossetti is a seed of affection, and although he has a deep love and reluctance to attach himself to his wife, and buries his poems with his wife Stelle, he also has various scandals with his friend's lover or wife. Rossetti, who is good at painting poetry and handsome appearance, is the dream lover of many girls, and Morris naturally has difficulty refusing such a charming attraction, and this man will also paint himself as the most beautiful woman in the world, Pandora.
The beauty of Elizabeth Stell was also sought by many at the time, and John Everett Milles, another founder of the Raphaelites, was one of them, and his "Ophelia" in Hamlet, based on Stell, was also a great masterpiece left by the pre-Raphaelites.
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John William Waterhouse, "Psyche Opens the Golden Box"
Not all girls who open the box are Pandora, such as the above painting, which is often misunderstood as Pandora. This painting is John William Waterhouse's "Psyche Opens the Golden Box", which tells another story in Roman mythology, that is, the story of Cupid and Psyc told in "The Battle of Olympus (Part 2): Curiosity Kills the Cat", and the box that Psyc opened did not bring disaster to the world, but put himself to sleep.