Persephone: the 17th century

In my last post we looked at the story of Persephone in the 16th century, when the rape (i.e., kidnapping) of Persephone was a popular theme from the story. We now move on to the 17th century, looking first at pictures of the rape and then a few pictures of Persephone in the underworld.

In the first decade of the century, Hendrik van Balen painted Pluto and Persephone, which is now in the Brighton Museum and Art Gallery.



Bernini's 1621-1622 statue of Pluto and Proserpina is now in Rome's Galleria Borghese. (public domain image from Museum Syndicate)



Rembrandt painted the above Rape of Persephone in 1631, which is Berlin's Gemäldegalerie, but does not appear to be on their website.



Pignoni's 1650 above L'Enlèvement de Proserpine is now in Nancy's Musée des Beaux-Arts.



In the early 1680s Giordano painted a series of oil studies or modelli which are now in London's National Gallery. These were preparation for a series of frescoes in Florence's Palazzo Medici Riccardi, one of which, showing the rape of Proserpina, is shown above.



Turning to the theme of Persephone in the underworld, the above detail from a 1622 picture of Hell by François de Nomé. The complete picture is now in Besançon's Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'Archéologie.(image used under creative commons licence, courtesy of baroque-in-art.org) Paris's Louvre has a painting of Orpheus before Pluto and Persephone by Perrier and dating from 1647-1650. (unless otherwise ascribed, all images in this post are in the public domain and come from wikicommons)

To finish this look at Persephone in the 17th century here is an extract from the overture to Lully's opera Proserpina. YouTube also has extracts from Act III amongst the related videos.

Perseus and Andromeda: The 17th century

In the early 1600s Carlo Saraceni, inspired by Giorgio Vasari's Perseus and Andromeda, which we looked at in my previous post, produced the picture below of Andromeda in Chains, which is now in Dijon's Musée des Beaux-Arts, but not on their website.(the picture of coral on the left was produced by the United States National Oceanic and Atmpospheric Administration and is thus in the public domain. From wikicommons)



In 1610 Mozzarone painted a picture of Andromeda which is now in Florence's Uffizi Gallery.



Another similar painting by Joachim Wtewael shown above, dates from 1611 and is now in Paris's Louvre.







Rubens painted three versions of Perseus and Andromeda. The top picture is in St. Petersburg's State Hermitage while the middle picture is in Berlin's Gemälde Galerie Kulturforum, but not on their website. They were both painted in 1620 or 1621, while the bottom picture was one he was working on when he died in 1640 and is now in Madrid's Prado (direct link to picture not possible).



At about the same time as Rubens was painting the first two of his pictures of Perseus, Lully was composing an opera about Perseus and Andromeda: Persée, the opening of a recent TV production of which can be seen in the above embedded YouTube video. Other parts of this production are also available on YouTube.



Around 1630 Rembrandt painted the above picture, which is now in the Hague's Mauritshuis (scroll down).




The tapestry shown above was designed by Francis Cleyn and made from 1635-1645. It is now in London's Victoria and Albert Museum, but is not on their website.



The above 1679 painting by Pierre Mignard is now in Paris's Louvre.



Also in the Louvre are the above 1678-1684 statue of Perseus and Andromeda by Pierre Puget and a 1671 drawing by Claude Lorrain, depicting not Perseus's rescue of Andromeda but the creation of coral from seaweed by Medusa's head while Perseus is washing his hands in the sea after killing the monster. The drawing was preparation for the painting below, now in a private collection. (Picture of statue in the public domain according to museumsyndicate.com, picture below used under creative commons licence)



We'll finish this look at the 17th century with a 17th century copy of Guido Reni's 1635 Perseus and Andromeda in London's National Gallery (the original is in the Pallavicini collection in Rome, but not on their website) and a 1638 picture in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which may or may not be by Anthony van Dyck. It serves as the hook for this article from the Los Angeles Times on the re-attribution of works of art. (pictures not otherwise credited are in the public domain and come from wikicommons)

Danae: the 17th Century

We start our look at Danae in the 17th century with a painting from the first years of the century by Joachim Wtewael called "Jupiter Entering Danae's Room", which is now in Paris's Louvre.



At around the same time, in 1603, Hendrick Goltzius painted the above picture, which is now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.




The two paintings above were painted a daughter and her father. The upper painting dates to 1612 and was painted by Artemisia Gentileschi and is now in the Saint Louis Art Museum, while the lower painting was painted in 1621 by her father Orazio Gentileschi and is now in the Cleveland Museum of Art



Rembrandt worked on the above painting of Danae from 1636-1647. It is now in St. Petersburg's State Hermitage, where it was attacked with acid by a lunatic in 1985, and then carefully restored. (all images come from wikicommons and are in the public domain)

Lucretia: The 17th Century

In my last post we looked at some 16th century art featuring the story of Lucretia. Roman History Books and More came up with another example by Raphael, which is now in New York's Metropolitan Museum. I've also found another two paintings from the 16th century: Il Sadoma's 1518 Death of Lucretia, now in Budapest's Szépmûvészeti Múzeum, but not on their website, and Tintoretto's 1578-80 Tarquin and Lucretia, now in The Art Institute of Chicago.

Moving on to the 17th century proper, the picture below was painted by Rubens from 1609-12. The painting was looted from Germany by a Russian soldier during WWII, and has been exhibited in St. Petersburg's The Hermitage and Moscow's Pushkin Museum. The history of the painting and Germany's attempts to have it returned are covered by The Guardian, Deutsche Welle, and Passport Moscow.



Guido Reni's workshop seems to have churned out quite a few paintings showing Lucretia's suicide in the second quarter of the 17th century. The one below is now in Museu de Arte de São Paulo, but they seem to be having problems with their website. At any rate, I couldn't get the picture to display. Other examples are in Rome's Pinacoteca Capitolina (not on their website), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Barnard Castle's The Bowes Museum.



1650 seems to have been a bumper year for Lucretias. The two pictures below are in private collections. The upper one is by Cagnacci, and the lower one is by Simon Vouet (image courtesy of www.simon-vouet.org under creative commons licence). Carlos Parada's website Greek Mythology Link has a picture by du Fresnoy, which is in Kassel's Hessisches Landesmuseum, whose website I find totally baffling.




Giordano painted both a rape and a suicide of Lucretia. The rape was painted in 1663 and is shown below. The painting is in Naples's Museo di Capodimonte, but I cannot find it on their website. No date is given for the suicide, which is now in Stuttgart's Staatsgalerie.



Rembrandt painted two versions of Lucretia's suicide. The first (1664) is now in Washington DC's National Gallery of Art, while the second (1666), shown below, is in Minneapolis's Institute of Arts, which discusses the painting in detail here.



Sebastiano Ricci's 1685 painting, Lucretia, shown below, is in a hospital in Parma, though sources differ over which one.



Crespi's 1695 painting of the rape of Lucretia is now in Washington DC's National Gallery of Art. (all illustrations are in the public domain and are from wiki commons unless otherwise credited)

Encroaching a little bit into the 18th century, let's finish this installment with Handel's Cantata "Lucrezia", composed around 1708 when Handel was in Italy.

Actaeon - 15th to 17th centuries

Book III of the Metamorphoses continues with the story of Actaeon. We start our look at representations of this theme with a majolica dish dating from the 1490s and now in Bath's Holbourne Museum of Art, showing the story of Actaeon in the centre and the story of the Centaurs and the Lapiths around the rim. (photograph by HaSee released into the public domain via wikipedia)



The picture to the left is Louis Cranach the Elder's picture of Diana and Actaeon, from the first third of the 16th century. It is now in Connecticut's Wadsworth Athenaeum, but does not appear to be on their website.





















The two pictures of Actaeon above are both by Titian, the one on the left, called Diana Surprised by Actaeon, being earlier (1556-1559 -- now in The National Galleries of Scotland) and the one on the right, called The Death of Actaeon, being later (1565-1576 -- now in London's National Gallery). Lonely London Lad's song was inspired by the Diana Surprised by Actaeon, and the two paintings form the video accompaniment to this performance of the aria "Oft she visits this lov'd mountain" from Purcell's "Dido and Aeneas".















Moving on to the late 1580s and and early 1590s, the above left picture is by Bassano, (now in the Art Institute of Chicago) while a drawing by Spranger is now in New York's Metropolitan Museum. The above right picture is by Cesari (1603), and is now in Budapest's Szépmûvészeti Múzeum, but does not appear to be on their website.

A decade or so later, Joachim Anthoniesz Wtewael of the Netherlands produced Actaeon Watching Diana and Her Nymphs Bathing, now in Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. Dresden's Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister (ninth picture down -- can't link any more closely) dates Albani's painting of Diana and Actaeon to before 1630. In 1634, Rembrandt combined the stories of Diana and Callisto and Diana and Actaeon in a single picture now in Anholt Castle in North Rhine-Westphalia (a tip of the hat to Judith Weingarten, who brought this to my attention in a comment on my second post about Callisto).

St. Petersburg's The Hermitage has Maratti's Landscape With Diana and Actaeon from the late 1660s, while Liechtenstein Castle takes us up to the 1690s with Franceschini's Diana and Acteon .

Backtracking slightly to 1684, the French composer Charpentier wrote a pastorale called Actéon, an extract from which can be viewed below.

Europa -- The 17th Century

My previous post on the theme of Europa showed its use by artists in the 15th and 16th centuries. Let's continue now into the 17th century.

















These two pictures show Europa being carried off by Jupiter in bull disguise, but still near the shore. The one on the left was painted in the early years of the 17th century by Antonio Carraci and is now in Bologna's Pinacoteca. The picture on the right dating to 1632 (now in Los Angeles' Getty Center) is by Rembrandt. It is discussed at length on philologos and on the wikimedia commons page from which this reproduction is taken.




Europa and Jupiter are out at sea in this picture by Guido Reni, painted at about the same time as Rembrandt's picture and now in London's National Gallery. Albani painted two versions of this story, the one shown here, now in Florence's Galeria di Uffizi (not shown on their website) and one in
St. Petersburg's Hermitage. Again at the same time, Simon Vouet's painting below (now in Madrid's Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza) shows Europa and the bull still on land. (public domain reproduction taken from Museum Syndicate)



Claude Lorrain put Europa and the bull in no less than five paintings ranging from 1634 to 1667. The earliest is in Fort Worth's Kimbell Art Museum (no direct link possible. Search for Europa.) Lorrain's next version of Europa and Jupiter, dated to 1647 is on loan to Utrecht's Centraal Museum, but does not appear to be on their website. Lorrain's third version of the story (1655) is in Moscow's Pushkin Museum but not on their website. It can, however, be seen on the website of Houston's Museum of Fine Arts from when it was on loan there. The fourth version is in a private collection, while Lorrain's fifth and last version is in The Royal Collection. The Web Gallery of Art has a reproduction of the fifth version, with a discussion of Lorrain's different versions of the Europa and the bull. (except where stated, all reproductions are in the public domain and from wikimedia commons.)