Apollo and Daphne (Pollaiuolo)

Apollo and Daphne is a c.1470–1480 oil on panel painting, attributed to Piero del Pollaiuolo and/or his brother Antonio). William Coningham acquired it in Rome in 1845 and in 1876 Wynne Ellis left it to the National Gallery, London, where it still hangs.^[1] It shows Daphne's transformation into a laurel tree to escape Apollo in Ovid's Metamorphoses.

Apollo and Daphne (c. 1470–1480)

Its choice of wood as a support and its small dimensions mean that it was long mistaken as a fragment of a decorative cassone.^[2] It was long attributed to Antonio but is now usually attributed to Piero. The background vegetation was previously brighter but is now irreversibly oxidized.^[3]