Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Liriope.
The gallery
Liriope Bringing Narcissus before Tiresias
Giulio Carpioni, c. 1660s
Carpioni’s Kunsthistorisches Museum canvas (GG 1646) shows the naiad Liriope presenting infant Narcissus to blind Tiresias — Ovid’s opening of the Echo myth. Venetian color keeps the mother visible as the figure who asks the fatal question: will the boy live long if he never knows himself?
Liriope Bringing Narcissus before Tiresias
Giulio Carpioni, 1660s
A second Carpioni treatment of the same Metamorphoses III consultation: Liriope, the river-nymph mother, and the prophet who answers with a riddle. Together the canvases form the rare early-modern gallery that names Liriope rather than only her self-doomed son.
Liriope and Narcissus
Jacob Cobaert, c. 1600
Cobaert’s relief pair binds mother and son in one sculptural breath — Liriope as the naiad who bore Narcissus to Cephissus. The work belongs to the Ovidian decorative tradition that kept the nymph’s name alive beside the boy at the pool.