The Centaurs and the Lapithoe Women

Dulac was born in France. He first studied law at the University of Toulouse then decided to take up art. He studied at the Academie Julian in Paris before moving to London in 1904. He became a naturalized British subject and went on to be one of our most famous and successful magazine and book illustrators. The present work was painted for the Heart magazine, American Weekly. It illustrates a scene from Greek mythology. The Lapiths, an Aeolian tribe, had invited the Centaurs to a feast to celebrate the wedding of Pirithous. The Centaurs were unused to wine and when the bride was presented to greet the guests they fell upon her and her maidens resulting in a furious and bloody battle. There is a reverse pencil drawing of the same subject reproduced in Colin White’s biography of Edmund Dulac, p.93 (private collection).