Allegory of Geometry

The Allegory of Geometry is from a series of paintings of the Seven Liberal Arts, which was one of La Hyre’s most important commissions and a paradigm of classical subject matter and refinement. He painted the group between 1649 and 1650 to decorate the Paris residence of G�d�on Tallemant, a member of the Council of State under Louis XIV. La Hyre also painted at least one other series of the Liberal Arts.

The series was dispersed sometime between 1760 and 1793. At present we know of nine paintings that belonged to the original group, seven representations of the liberal arts, all shown as large half-length figures of women surrounded by their attributes, and two, smaller, full-length figures of putti. They include: Grammar (London, National Gallery); Rhetoric and Logic (Swiss private collection); Arithmetic (Heino, The Netherlands, Hannema-de Stuers Fundatie); Music (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art); Geometry (the present work); Astronomy (Orleans, Mus�e des Beaux-Arts); A Putto Playing a Bass Viol and A Putto Singing (Dijon, Mus�e Magnin).