Cyparissus - Versailles, France
Posted by: Metro2
N 48° 48.419 E 002° 06.750
31U E 434835 N 5406379
Cyparissus, the beloved of Apollo, is here shown with a stag he has tamed.
Waymark Code: WMD0EF
Location: Île-de-France, France
Date Posted: 11/02/2011
Views: 11
This 1687 marble sculpture depicts Cyparissus standing and barechested, wearing a quiver on his back and a flowing garment around his waist. He caresses a stag which is standing next to him. The stag has a garland around its neck and a front hoof raised.
Wikipedia (
visit link) informs us that Cyparissus
"was a boy beloved by Apollo, or in some versions by other deities. In the best-known version of the story, the favorite companion of Cyparissus was a tamed stag, which he accidentally killed with his hunting javelin as it lay sleeping in the woods. The boy's grief was such that it transformed him into a cypress tree, a classical symbol of mourning. The myth is thus aetiological in explaining the relation of the tree to its cultural significance.
Cyparissus was the son of Telephus, and his story is set in Chios. The subject is mainly known from Hellenized Latin literature and frescoes from Pompeii."
The artist is Anselme Flamen (1647-1717).