Campaspe
by OTTIN, Auguste, Marble
The statue on the north fa�ade of the Cour Carr�e in the Louvre represent Campaspe taking off her clothes in front of Apelles by order of Alexander.
Apelles, the celebrated painter of ancient Greece, was court painter to Alexander the Great. The elder Pliny (Nat. Hist. 35:36) tells how Apelles was engaged by the emperor to paint his favourite concubine, the beautiful Campaspe, and how while doing so he fell in love with her. Alexander, as a mark of his appreciation of the painter’s work, made him a present of her.