Selene and Endymion

Lairesse held that a painting should suit the room it hangs in, and this one was made for a bedroom. It hung in the bedchamber of Mary Stuart at Soestdijk Palace, the country house of her husband, Stadtholder William III, later King of England alongside her. The subject fits. Selene, the chaste moon goddess, sometimes called Diana, has fallen in love with the shepherd Endymion, and she can only come to him at night while he sleeps. Here she steps down toward him with a huge golden moon behind her, one hand on the shoulder of Cupid, who holds up a burning torch, the sign of love's heat. Endymion lies asleep in the foreground, one arm thrown over his head. Lairesse painted it around 1680, a few years after Mary had arrived in the Dutch Republic as a young bride.