Name Your Poison

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art recently acquired a painting by a nearly-forgotten 17th-century French painter and Aubusson tapestry designer, Isaac Moillon, with funds gained from recently deaccessioned artwork sold at auction.
The 1653 painting, Sophonisbe Drinking Poison, is a narrative depiction of a queen who drinks poison rather than allow herself to being paraded through the streets by Roman conquerers. According to the LACMA site, Moillon descended from a family of painters, of whom his sister, Louise, was the most well-known. (Two of Louise Moillon’s still lifes -- Still Life with Bowl of Curacao Oranges, 1634 and Still Life with Cherries, Strawberries and Gooseberries, 1630 -- are part of the Norton Simon Museum collection.)
Sophonisbe Drinking Poison has a number of distinctions. Its beauty lives up to the epic heroism of its tale, conveying Sophonisbe in the extreme foreground, off-center, as a tragic, alabaster figure with disproportionately-long arms and a delicate hand, holding a cup into which her handmaid is pouring the poison; the queen’s face is turned aside, an aria of tragic I-will-bear-this sacrifice. The work was created in Mannerist style when the rest of the art world had gone Baroque. It’s also a rarity -- LACMA is the only American museum to have any of Isaac Moillon’s work.
For more info on Isaac Moillon, visit LACMA’s site here.
Sophonisbe Drinking Poison, 1653; Isaac Moillon (France, Paris, 1614-1673); oil on canvas: 56" x 56 3/4". Purchased with funds provided by the European Paintings Deaccession Fund.