Alexander the Great Giving Campaspe to Apelles

Charles Meynier's Alexander the Great Giving Campaspe to Apelles (1822) illustrates a celebrated anecdote from Pliny the Elder: Alexander the Great commissioned the painter Apelles to portray his favourite concubine Campaspe, and when Apelles fell in love with her, the magnanimous monarch gave her to him. The story was irresistible to artists because it touched on the power and dignity of art itself — a king deferring to a painter's passion. Meynier, a senior figure in French Neoclassicism trained under Vincent and a Prix de Rome laureate, treated the episode with the formal clarity and Raphaelesque balance characteristic of his style, now held at the Museum of Fine Arts of Rennes.

Meynier arranges the three principal figures in a classical triangular composition — Alexander presenting, Campaspe central, Apelles receiving — set against an architectural background establishing the Macedonian court. The figures are idealized and statuesque in the Neoclassical mode, the palette warm and golden, with particular care given to the rendering of drapery.