Head of Helen of Troy (oil on canvas)

Oil painting on canvas (circular), Head of Helen of Troy, after Guido Reni (Bologna 1575 – Bologna 1642). A circular half-length portrait of a young woman, turned to the right, almost profile, dark brown hair, wearing a white linen shift beneath a gold cloak. Helen was the daughter of Zeus and Leda; the wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta, and subsequently of Paris, son of King Priam of Troy. Her sister Clytemnestra married Agamemnon, who was the brother of Menelaus. Her brothers were Castor and Polydeuces (Pollux), the Dioscuri. Helen and Menelaus's daughter Hermione married Orestes. This is an example of a much copied part of Guido Reni's The Abduction of Helen in the Louvre, painted in Rome between 1627-31 for Philip IV of Spain, bought by Queen Marie de Medici of France whose exile resulted in its being acquired by Louise Phélypiaux de La Vrillière as one of the first of the large pictures to adorn the gallery of his hôtel in Paris, whence it was removed to the Louvre at the time of the French Revolution. Another copy of the whole scene painted by Giacinto Campana and retouched by Reni himself is in the Galleria Spada, Rome. Ham House, Surrey (Accredited Museum) after cleaning by Simon Folkes