Apollo and Daphne
(1895)
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Measurements
- 168.2 × 199.0 cm
- Place/s of Execution
- London, England
- Department
- International Painting
- Credit Line
- Purchased with funds donated by Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM and Family, Warren Clark Bequest, E. & D. Rogowski Foundation, Louis Partos Bequest, and Marnie and Trevor Holborrow, 2025
- Gallery location
- 19th Century European Paintings Gallery
Level 2, NGV International - About this work
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Trained at London’s Royal Academy of Arts under Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Henrietta Rae began exhibiting at the Royal Academy herself in 1881 and developed a reputation as a highly accomplished painter of Classical and allegorical subjects, frequently rendered on a large scale. In 1890 Rae travelled to Paris with her husband, fellow painter Ernest Normand, to further her studies under the French Academic master Jules Lefebvre at the Académie Julian. She returned to London with a new sense of purpose, enabling her to withstand the frequent criticisms of her work delivered by male painter rivals such as Frederic Leighton and John Millais – which may have been in response to her strong support of feminist causes and women’s suffrage. Apollo and Daphne, a tour-de-force mythological set piece, was Rae’s contribution to the Royal Academy exhibition of 1895.