Zeuxis Selecting Models for His Painting of Helen of Troy.

Angelica Kauffmann painted Zeuxis Selecting Models for His Painting of Helen of Troy around 1778, depicting the famous story of the ancient Greek painter who, unable to find a single woman beautiful enough to represent the ideal Helen, selected the finest features of multiple models to construct a composite ideal beauty. The subject was a standard vehicle for the Neoclassical theory of ideal beauty: the artist's task is not to copy nature but to surpass it through selective synthesis of its best qualities. As a woman painter depicting the act of selecting beautiful women as models, Kauffmann gives the traditional story a complex gender dimension: the female artist observing and evaluating female beauty according to the standard ideals of the male classical tradition.

Kauffman arranges the classical figures in an elegant composition with characteristic Neoclassical restraint. The soft coloring and graceful poses reflect her Roman training, while the subject matter affirms her intellectual engagement with art theory.