The painter was about 37 years old when he painted "Apelles Painting Campaspe." This shows an imaginary seventeenth century collector’s cabinet with in the foreground a story from the classical antiquity. The man sitting at the easel is Apelles, court painter to Alexander the Great (behind Apelles). He is painting Campaspe, the lover of Alexander. Apelles fell in love with Campaspe and Alexander gave her away as a present to him when the portrait was done (strange fellows, those Romans). Alexander was set to be content with just the portrait, since it was even more beautiful than the woman (shallow much?) Obviously the story was popular among painters to show that their art could surpass nature. Van Haecht situated the story amidst this huge looking art collection, showing many paintings he knew. Many of the paintings shown in this ‘collection’ do in fact exist though they have never been part of the same collection. http://fyalexanderandhephaestion.tumblr.com/post/4830258488/lienatik-willem-van-haecht-apelles-paints undefined

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