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'The Finding of Aesculapius'
'Christ and the Magdalen', Arthur Hacker
'Christ blessing the little children', Benjamin Robert Haydon
'The Lady with the Japanese Gown: Miss Enid Rutherford', James Hamilton Hay
'Comtesse de Morel-Vindé and her daughter', Baron François-Pascal-Simon Gérard
'Napoleon Crossing the Alps', Paul Delaroche
'Lady in Black Furs', Pilade Bertieri
'Samson', Solomon J Solomon
'Hazel in Rose and Gold', Sir John Lavery
'Portrait of William Roscoe', Sir Martin Archer Shee

'The Finding of Aesculapius', Giovanni Tognolli

There is a baby lying between a dog and goat to the left of the painting. A semi-nude man covered only by a light cloth is approaching the baby.

Oil on canvas, painted between 1822 and 1839

Acc. No. WAG 3040

According to Greek myth, Aesculapius, god of healing, was abandoned as a baby on a hillside. He survived by suckling from a nanny goat and was protected by a guard dog. He was rescued by a shepherd attracted by the baby’s dazzling aura, enhanced here by the bright white coverlet on which he lies.

Tognolli emphasises the nurturing qualities of the goat and the watchfulness of the dog. In the foreground a snake winds itself around a branch in a natural allusion to the symbol of Aesculapius and medicine itself.

Tognolli, before teaching at the British Academy in Rome, worked as a draughtsman in the studio of the leading neo-classical sculptor Antonio Canova (1757-1822). There he may have met the Liverpool born but Rome-based William Earle (1760-1839), the first owner of this painting.