Antiochus Yearning for Stratonice

Stefano Pozzi · c. 1740

Medium

Oil on canvas

Original size

98.2 × 136 cm (38 9/16 × 53 9/16 in.); Framed: 129.6 × 169 × 9.6 cm (51 × 66 1/2 × 3 3/4 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Rococo

Stefano Pozzi's depiction of Antiochus pining for his father's young wife, Stratonice, is a quietly charged work — all restrained longing rendered in the warm, honeyed light of mid-18th century Roman painting. Pozzi was a respected figure in Rome's artistic circles, working in a tradition that blended late Baroque grandeur with the softer, more intimate sensibility emerging across Europe in the 1740s. His brushwork favours smooth, luminous flesh tones and richly draped textiles that give the scene a physical warmth, drawing the viewer into the private anguish of the moment. The composition reflects his facility with history painting — a genre demanding both narrative clarity and emotional depth. The story itself was well-known in the ancient world: Antiochus, son of Seleucus I, fell gravely ill from suppressed love for his stepmother, and the physician Erasistratus famously diagnosed lovesickness by observing his pulse quicken in her presence — a tale repeated by Plutarch and popular with painters across centuries. This hand-painted oil reproduction is made to the same scale and medium as the original, preserving Pozzi's layered glazes, his characteristic handling of light on fabric, and the painting's subtly melancholic atmosphere that photographs simply cannot convey.