Artwork
Sleeping Nymph
Sleeping Nymph is an oil painting by the Flemish Baroque painting artist Toussaint Gelton. It dates from 1662 and is held in the collection of the Statens Museum for Kunst.
About this work
Subject & Meaning
5 by 27 cm, uses the intimate support to lend precision to the figure's quiet, restful presence.
The painting depicts a nymph in a state of sleep, a subject drawn from classical mythology. In the broader tradition of mythological painting, the sleeping nymph was a popular motif that often carried associations with vulnerability, eroticism, and the pastoral world of antiquity, inviting the viewer to contemplate the figure in a moment of unguarded repose.
Rendered in oil on copper, the small-scale work, measuring 35.5 by 27 cm, uses the intimate support to lend precision to the figure's quiet, restful presence. The choice of a mythological nymph as subject situates the image within the seventeenth-century European taste for classical themes, where such figures functioned as both decorative subjects and vehicles for exploring themes of beauty, nature, and the mythological imagination.
Technique & Style
The work Sleeping Nymph is painted on a copper support using oil pigments, a technique typical of Dutch Golden Age easel painting. The small dimensions, measuring 35.5 cm in height and 27 cm in width, emphasize the intimate scale often found in mythological subjects of the period. The smooth surface of the metal substrate allows fine detail in the rendering of the nymph’s drapery and foliage, contributing to a polished finish characteristic of the artist’s style.
The composition balances naturalistic modeling with a decorative sensibility, reflecting the influence of classical mythology on 17th‑century Dutch art.
History & Provenance
Sleeping Nymph by Toussaint Gelton is held in the collection of the Statens Museum for Kunst in Denmark. The painting, executed in oil on copper in 1662, is part of the museum's holdings of mythological works.
No specific inventory or accession number is recorded in the available sources, and no exhibition history is documented.
Overview
Created in 1662, Sleeping Nymph is a small-scale work executed on copper. The Dutch artist Toussaint Gelton, active in the mid‑17th century, painted the scene in the Flemish Baroque idiom that characterized his mythological output. The piece belongs to the collection of the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen.
Artist & collection
Artist
Toussaint Gelton (1630 – 1680) was a Dutch painter known for his work buying paintings in 1658 for the Swedish king Charles X Gustav and the family of Swedish noble Magnus Gabriel de la Gardie.
