Evander and Aimene

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A student of David at the Academy of Beaux-Arts beginning in 1791, Ponce-Camus demonstrates his learning in this painting with its refined colours, favouring design and line.  Here, the curve of the bodies stands out against a light, unified background animated by a few sparse acanthus leaves.  The artist exhibited this scene, which is more sentimental than heroic despite being drawn from Antiquity, at the 1817 Exhibition.  It is accompanied by a long text situating the scene before the departure of Evander, king of Arcadia, for Italy (shortly before the Trojan War), where he will found Pallanteum, the village on Palatine Hill that will one day become Rome.  His daughter pays no attention to his speech and plucks the leaves off a plant, hoping to tell her future.