Apollo Granting Phaeton Permission to Drive the Chariot of the Sun

There may have been seven mythological paintings in this series, each corresponding to a celestial body and a day of the week. In the 17th century, the cosmological correlations between the movements of the planets and the passing of time were demonstrated through stories like this one. Here, Apollo, the Roman sun god of Sunday, grants his pleading son Phaeton permission to drive his chariot, a journey that would bring the light of day across the sky. Apollo’s daughters, the Heliades, and Chronos, the god of time, look on with interest.

Phaeton, a human, would ultimately crash and set the earth ablaze.

Working in Oil on canvas at 81.3 × 125.2 cm (32 × 49 1/2 in.), Johann Michael Rottmayr constructs depth through value contrast rather than outline, letting figures emerge from darkness the way they would under candlelight or through a shuttered window.

Look closely and the painting opens up. Objects you might pass over — a folded letter, a half-drawn curtain, the angle of a glance — were placed to be read. Figures and gestures here follow a visual vocabulary contemporary viewers would have read fluently — attributes, poses, and settings that identify who is who and what is at stake.

Housed at Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago, the painting has passed through the hands of collectors, dealers, and institutions before reaching public view — a provenance that is itself part of the object's story.

“A silence so complete it becomes its own witness.”