The Zephyr

Prud'hon painted The Zephyr in 1814, depicting the personification of the mild west wind as a winged figure of airy grace — a late variant of the airborne mythological figures he had been developing since the 1800 Génie de la paix. The Wallace Collection holds this work alongside the other Prud'hon acquisitions that demonstrate Richard Seymour-Conway's specific taste for the French painter's warm, atmospheric mythological subjects over his more official allegorical commissions. By 1814 Prud'hon had perfected his technique for depicting airborne figures — the soft, warm luminosity appropriate to a being composed of air and warmth, the drapery arranged to suggest buoyancy and movement, the slightly hazy atmospheric treatment that dissolves the figure's material weight. The Zephyr represents his most characteristic late manner applied to one of the lightest and most purely atmospheric subjects available in the classical mythological repertoire.

The challenge of depicting the wind personified was essentially the challenge of making material what is by nature immaterial — giving warmth, softness, and gentle motion a human form without destroying the qualities that make Zephyrus what he is. Prud'hon's sfumato technique — which always softened the material substantiality of figures — was the natural solution to this representational problem.