Cymon and Iphigenia

Frederic Leighton is mostly known for his another painting - Flaming June - which we featured two or three times already (of course because I truly love it, check it out in our Archive). You may not know the story of Cymon and Iphigenia.

The direct source of the narrative is Boccaccio's 'Decameron', in which the well-born and handsome young Galesus was renamed Cymon - meaning beast - on account of his brutishness. On a mild afternoon in May, Cymon chanced upon the sleeping Iphigenia, sensing at once that she was 'the loveliest object that any mortal being had ever seen'. Falling instantly in love, he became a lifelong devotee of beauty and philosophy.

I always wondered how on earth all the mythical Greek protagonists just so happen to chance upon other sleeping protagonists just like this. Anyway, according to a story published in 1897, Leighton spent six months searching throughout Europe for a model to match his imagined ideal of Iphigenia. He saw a young actress, Dorothy Dene, in a theater in London and his search was over. Possessing a classical Greek style beauty, Dene had golden wavy hair with excellent skin texture and coloration on her face; she was taller than average with graceful arms and legs together with an “exquisitely molded bust”.