Apelles allowed the superiority of some of his contemporaries in particular matters: according to Pliny he admired the dispositio of Melanthius, i.e. the way in which he spaced his figures, and the mensurae of Asclepiodorus, who must have been a great master of symmetry and proportion.
In 1611, Scheiner observed sunspots; in 1612 he published the "Apelles letters" in Augsburg.
Apelles |
Other works included in that view are Women at her toilet by Jan van Eyck, a still life by Frans Snyders, Ceres Mocked by Adam Elsheimer, Danaë by Van Haecht, Battle of the Amazons and a portrait by Peter Paul Rubens, Peasant Company with Woman making Pancakes by Pieter Aertsen, Apelles by Jan Wierix and a hunting scene by Jan Wildens.
The mural of Venus from Pompeii was never seen by Botticelli, the painter of The Birth of Venus, but may have been a Roman copy of the then famous painting by Apelles which Lucian mentioned.
While the humble cock is being sacrificed, they turn, like the women in the Ion of Euripides, to admire the works of art; among them a small boy strangling a vulpanser – doubtless the work of Boethus that we know and a sacrificial procession by Apelles, "the Ephesian," of whom we have an interesting piece of contemporary eulogy.
Through the desire of Renaissance artists reading Pliny to emulate Apelles, and, if possible, to outdo him, Venus Anadyomene was taken up again in the 15th century: besides Botticelli's famous Birth of Venus (Uffizi Gallery, Florence), another early Venus Anadyomene is the bas-relief by Antonio Lombardo from Wilton House (Victoria and Albert Museum, London).