27 August 2008

Europa - the 18th and 19th Centuries

After previous posts covering Europa in the 15th and 16th centuries and in the 17th century, I'd like to move on to the 18th and 19th centuries.

These two pictures were painted around 1720, the one on the left by Tiepolo (now in Venice's Galleria dell'Academia but not on their website) and the one on the right by Ricci (now in Rome's Palazzo Taverna, no website, but see this view and further information (click on loudspeaker for audio commentary as well) from when the picture was exhibited at the National Gallery of Australia).

Ferretti painted a Rape of Europa from 1728 to 1737. It is now in Florence's Galleria Uffizi, though it was displayed for a long time in the Chamber of Deputies of the Italian Parliament, whose website shows the central part of the picture. A better reproduction can be seen at the Web Gallery of Art. At much the same time, Boucher also painted a Rape of Europa, now in London's Wallace Collection.





Shortly afterwards in 1750, Pierre painted this version, now in the Dallas Museum of Art (not possible to link directly -- go to View, then Collections and search for Abduction of Europa).



Gustave Moreau seems to have painted Europa at least five times in the last third of the 19th century though hard and fast information is hard to come by. The above picture is in Moreau's former home, which he left to the nation and is now the Musée Gustave-Moreau (not on the museum's website but in the French Ministère de Culture's Jaconde database, together with another picture of Europa -- to see studies towards these pictures click on the 1 near the bottom of the page).



This version of Europa by Moreau is in Hartford's Wadsworth Atheneum, again not on the museum's website. Moreau did other paintings of Europa, one of which is now in Paris's Musée d'Orsay and another one in Rouen's Musée de Beaux-Arts (not on the Museum's website but on this commercial site).

An 1872 terracotta of Europa and the Bull by Louis Hubert-Noel is now in South Carolina's Columbia Museum of Art. (All illustrations in the public domain via wiki commons media)

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