When this painting was first exhibited and in early lists of West’s works, the subject was given as Rinaldo and Armida, from a scene in Torquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata (1575), in which Rinaldo is most often represented holding a mirror to Armida’s face, as in West’s version of 1766 (Rutgers University Art Gallery, New Brunswick, NJ.). Few details of the painting support that identification, however, whereas many coincide with the story of Cymon and Iphigenia, which West may have known either from the original tale by Boccaccio in The Decameron (1353) or from the version by John Dryden (1700). Cymon was the handsome son of a nobleman of Cypress who was so crude and stupid that he was sent to work on the land. One morning he happened on the camp where Iphigenia (not the daughter of Agamemnon) was sleeping among her slaves. Transfixed by her beauty, he remained leaning on his staff. When she awoke and spoke, he continued to stare at her. His love for Iphigenia fired Cymon with such desire for learning that he quickly advanced to become an exemplary young man and after some military adventures, won her. All the elements in this painting correspond to the story, with the exception that Iphigenia is here clothed, whereas in most representations she is sleeping nearly nude, with her breasts uncovered. A reference to this detail is made by the partial dress of the sleeping slave on the right. The museum’s picture and West’s Isaac’s Servant Tying the Bracelet on Rebecca’s Arm, 1775 (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Conn.), dated two years later and of identical size, were painted for John Hobart, the second earl of Buckinghamshire, and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1776. The theme shared by these otherwise dissimilar subjects is the finding of the ideal wife. It would have been entirely characteristic of West to have painted these pictures, with their similar central female figures, as allegorical portraits, in this case of Lord Buckinghamshire’s second wife, whom he had married in 1770. The fact that they were inherited by the daughter from this marriage would seem to support this conjecture. If Iphigenia is a portrait of the countess, perhaps this explains her modestly covered bosom. In his well-known works of the mid-1760s West continued to develop his somewhat dry and stiff neoclassical style. By the early 1770s he had arrived at a truly grand style: the forms are simpler and larger, colors richer, technique more expert and elegant. The large forms, heavy drapery, and slow rhythms recall the classicism of the Italian seventeenth-century artists Guercino (1591-1666) and Guido Reni (1575-1642).

Although the thirteen colonies that would constitute the United States of America were founded by several different nations, by 1763 (the end of the French and Indian Wars), the British controlled most of North America from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River. In many respects the American colonies functioned like an English province. Culturally they were largely British; from interior design and dress to painted portraits, wealthy colonists emulated the London fashions of the period. However, there was often a time lag, as examples of the finest British furniture, household goods, and decorative items such as paintings had to be transported across the ocean.

At first the only trained artists and artisans in the colonies were emigrants from London who thought fame would be easier to achieve in the less competitive atmosphere of Boston or Philadelphia. By the end of the eighteenth century, this traffic had reversed somewhat, as American artists went to London for their training. Portraits were the most popular genre, since British citizens everywhere wanted visual records of their families and heroes. Historical and literary subjects, such as those by Benjamin West, were usually only painted in London; their appreciation required a more educated audience than was the case with many colonists. The pervasive influence of Britain would continue to affect the development of culture in the United States long after the Revolutionary War had severed the Crown’s political authority.

To hear an excerpt from a famous poem by John Dryden about Cymon and Iphigenia, press the play button below.

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