The painting is one of three paintings by Swiss artist’s to be added to the gallery’s collection.
Achilles discovered among the Daughters of Lycomedes, 1787–8
Oil on canvas, 103.2 x 130.8 cm
The National Gallery, London. A gift from the Barrett Collection, 2026
Photo: © The National Gallery, London
It has been confirmed that The National Gallery has acquired a Greek mythology picture by the 18th-century artist Angelica Kauffmann (1741 –1807), her first history painting in oils in a UK national collection.
Achilles discovered among the Daughters of Lycomedes is part of a gift to the Gallery from Richard and Luba Barrett of three pictures by Swiss artists. The others include a portrait by Ferdinand Hodler (1853–1918) and a landscape by Alexandre Calame (1810–64). All works are now on display at the gallery.
Kauffmann’s painting is the first to enter the National Gallery’s current collection. A picture by the artist was bequeathed to the Gallery in 1835 but was then transferred to the National Gallery of British Art, Millbank, now Tate Britain, founded in 1897. From there it was lent to the Guildhall, Plymouth, where it is believed to have been destroyed in the Plymouth Blitz in 1941. Achilles discovered among the Daughters of Lycomedes is the first work by Kauffmann since then to join the National Gallery’s collection at Trafalgar Square.
Produced in 1787 to 1778, at the height of her success in Europe, thisunusually large and fully worked preparatory picture is for a final painting commissioned by Catherine the Great that is now at the Scientific-Research Museum of the Academy of Arts of Russia, in St Petersburg.
The main subject is Achilles, whose death in the Trojan War had been prophesied. His mother Thetis wanted to protect him from his fate and, dressing him as a girl, she asked King Lycomedes to let him join the ladies at court as a ‘sister of Achilles’. When Ulysses and Diomedes bring gifts of clothes, jewellery and weapons to the court, Achilles gives himself away when he seizes the weapons.
Kauffmann had enjoyed a successful career in London, where she was one of only two female painters to be founding members of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1768, before going on to Rome where she would paint this picture.
The picture is part of a gift of three paintings from the Barrett Collection that also includes Portrait of Louis Montchal, the first portrait by the Swiss artist Ferdinand Hodler (1853–1918) to enter the National Gallery Collection. Hodler was the leading modernist Swiss painter in the decades around 1900. This painting joins his remarkable landscape The Kien Valley with the Bluemlisalp in the Distance of1902 which the Gallery acquired in January 2022.
Sir Gabriele Finaldi, Director of the National Gallery, says: ‘We are very grateful to Richard and Luba Barrett for this generous gift of three outstanding pictures by Swiss artists from the 18th and 19th centuries. As well as a striking portrait by Hodler and a fine landscape by Calame we have been given the first work by Angelica Kauffmann to enter the National Gallery’s current collection.’
The three works acquired through the gift of the Barrett Collection are on display from 2 July 2026. Angelica Kauffmann’s Achilles discovered among the Daughters of Lycomedes can be seen in Room 37, Ferdinand Hodler’s Portrait of Louis Montchal in Room 44 and Alexandre Calame’s Four Large Trees in Room 39.
To find out more about the National Gallery visit: https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/