Spiderwoman

Book VI of the Metamorphoses opens with the story of Arachne. (picture from wikicommons by galak76, used by permission under creative commons licence)

Arachne appears in a fresco painted by Francesco del Cossa in the Palazzo Schifanoia in the late 1460s. Although the Palazzo doesn’t seem to have a website, you can see the fresco in situ in the following video, where it appears about 25 seconds in.

At some point between 1475 and 1485 Tintoretto painted the above painting of Athene and Arachne, which is now in Florence’s Galleria degli Uffizi, but does not appear to be on their website.

The above fresco of Arachne by Veronese dates from 1520 and is in Venice’s Palazzo Ducale.
 

Another fresco of Arachne was painted by Herman Posthumus in 1542 and is from the Landshut Stadtresidentz, but does not appear to be on the Stadresidentz’s website.

Ruben’s version of the story of Arachne, painted 1636-7, is now in Richmond’s Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

Perhaps the most famous representation of the story of Arachne and Minerva is this painting from 1657 by Velázquez, now in Madrid’s Prado.

The above picture from the Iconos site is a 1695 painting by Giordano and is now in El Escorial, but is not on its website, or indeed anywhere else that I can find. (unless stated otherwise all images in this post are from wikicommons and in the public domain)

Perseus and Medusa: the 16th and 17th centuries

After Perseus defeats the sea monster and rescues Andromeda, the Ethiopians hold a feast in his honour and he tells the story of how he defeated Medusa.



Benvenuto Cellini's famous statue of Perseus with the head of Medusa is in Florence and dates from 1545-1554. John Singer Sargent produced a series of sketches and paintings of the statue, two of which are shown below, in the first decade of the 20th century. The upper picture is now in Washington's National Gallery of Art, and the lower picture is in the Santa Barbara Museum of Art (but not on their website). For more on Sargent's pictures of the statue see this site.




Youtube has a short slideshow of photos of Cellini's work taken from various angles:





The above painting of the head of Medusa on a shield is by Caravaggio. Painted in 1596, it is now in Florence's Uffizi Gallery (scroll down). Caravaggio painted another version of the same picture a year or so later which is now in a private collection and not online that I can see. Caravaggio's painting is discussed in this Guardian article.



Painted about the same time, and also now in the Uffizi is this painting by an unknown Flemish artist. For a long time it was thought to be one of the paintings of Medusa Leonardo Da Vinci is known to have painted but which have been lost. It served as the inspiration a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley (dialogic hypertext here).



The above picture of Medusa's head was painted in 1617-1618 by Rubens and is now in Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum. It is discussed in detail here.



Bernini produced a bust of Medusa in the 1640s, which is now in Rome's Musei Capitolini, where it is currently undergoing restoration.



Maffei's picture of Perseus Cutting off Medusa's Head (above) was painted in 1650 and is now in Venice's Gallerie dell'Accademia, but is not on their website. (all images are in the public domain and come from wikicommons)

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)

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.

The Rape of the Sabine Women

As I mentioned in my previous post, "rape" here means abduction or kidnapping rather than sexual assault. For those unfamiliar with the story, this song about the 'sobbing women' from the musical "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" gives a good summary:





The above 1525 picture by Il Sodoma is now in Rome's Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, but does not appear to be on their website.

Rubens's 1635-1640 picture of the Rape of the Sabine Women is now in London's National Gallery. Contemporary with it are Poussin's two pictures on the subject shown below. The upper picture is now in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and the lower one is in Paris's Louvre.






In the early 1670s Giordano painted a Rape of the Sabine Women now in Canberra's National Gallery of Australia. Ricci's 1700 picture on the same theme is now in Vienna's Liechtenstein Museum. The picture below was painted by Tiepolo in 1718/19 and is now in St. Petersburg's Hermitage.



David chose a later episode in the story for the 1790s picture below, showing the Intervention of the Sabine Women to stop the battle between their Sabine relatives and their new Roman husbands. The picture is now in Paris's Louvre. The painting was the inspiration for Eve Sussman's recent video musical, The Rape of the Sabine Women.



In the 20th century Picasso also chose to show a battle between Romans and Sabines over the women in his 1963 Rape of the Sabine Women now in Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. (all pictures in the public domain. The Il Sodoma and Poussin pictures are from wiki commons, and the Tiepolo and David pictures are from Museum Syndicate)

Romulus and Remus

I'm reading Steven Saylor's Roma in preparation for the Roman History Books Group's book chats on 19 February and 5 March. Chapter III is based on the story of Romulus and Remus, the foundation of Rome, and the Rape of the Sabine Women (this is what it's usually called, but to clear up any misapprehensions, "rape" here means kidnapping or abduction). Saylor is not of course the first person to be inspired by these stories. Let's have a look at some of the art they have inspired. (all images apart from the book cover are in the public domain and taken from wiki commons)






Romulus and Remus were the twin sons of the Vestal Virgin Rhea Silvia, who was seduced by the god Mars. The upper picture above from 1616/7 showing Mars and Rhea Silvia is by Rubens, and is now in Vienna's Liechtenstein Museum. The lower picture above showing Mars and the Vestal Virgin is by Blanchard and is slightly later (c. 1630). It is now in Sydney's Art Gallery of New South Wales. Rubens had already painted the next part of the story with a picture of Romulus and Remus as babies in the 1614 picture shown below, now in Rome's Pinacoteca Capitolina.



Cortone's 1643 picture, now in Paris's Louvre shows the next step in the story with the twins having been found by the shepherd Faustulus and taken home to his wife Acca Larentia. Sebastiano Ricci shows a domestic scene with Romulus and Remus as infants in the house of Faustulus and Acca Larentia in a 1708 picture now in St. Petersburg's The Hermitage. Gauffier, painting in the late 18th century, shows a similar scene in a picture now in Bordeaux's Musée des Beaux-Arts.

A series of tapestries showing the story of Romulus and Remus dating from the 1560s and now in Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum is travelling to the USA in 2010. Unfortunately the tapestries do not seem to be on the museum's website, but details of the travelling exhibition can be seen here. The tapestries also show the Rape of the Sabine Women, a theme I'll be looking at in my next post.

Semele

Ovid's next story is about Semele, one of Jupiter's mortal loves. Juno persuaded Semele to ask Jupiter to show himself to her in all his glory, and she got blasted.

Our first look at the story is this 1550s work attributed to Tintoretto and now in London's National Gallery. In the next century, Rubens also produced a Jupiter et Sémélé as part of a series of paintings on mythological themes. It is now in Brussels' Royal Museum of Fine Arts. Jan Voorhout (1647 - 1723) produced the undated picture below, now in the collection of Germany's Universität Göttingen.






In 1744 Handel wrote his opera Semele to a libretto written by Congreve for an earlier opera by John Eccles. The libretto was adapted for Handel by Newburgh Hamilton, who used some of Pope's verse in his adaptation. Those in the right part of the world at the right time might like to know that Handel's Semele is going to be performed at the Pacific Opera Victoria in British Columbia. Their website for this performance has a synopsis and video highlights of other performances of Handel's work. More unusually, here is a performance of an aria from Eccles's version.



Gustave Moreau painted two versions of Jupiter and Semele, shown below. Both are in the Musée Gustave Moreau. The left painting is slightly earlier, produced around 1890, while the one on the rightcomes from 1894 or 1895.




The Scottish artist John Duncan (1866-1945) painted this undated picture of Semele (click on the second picture from the right in the top row) by herself. Jupiter is not present, only Semele in flames.

Mercury, Aglauros and Herse

You may remember from the story of Coronis that on its way to tell Apollo about Coronis's infidelity, the raven met a crow. The crow told the raven how she had similarly told Minerva about the disobedience of Aglauros, who persuaded her sisters to open a basket in defiance of Minerva's orders. The basket contained a child and a snake, or in other versions of the story, a child with a snake's tail, and the three sisters went mad and threw themselves off the Acropolis. In Ovid's version, however, although the tittle-tattle crow is punished by being turned black (before that crows were white), the sisters remain unscathed. But Minerva remembers.

Later Mercury falls in love with Herse, one of Aglauros's sisters. He comes for a visit, and meets Aglauros, who agrees to help him -- for a price. Minerva is horrified that this woman who disobeyed her will be in Mercury's good books and will be rich as well. Minerva goes to Envy and asks her to touch Aglauros, who then, envying her sister's good fortune, tries to bar Mercury's way. Mercury turns her to stone. Tony Kline's translation of Ovid's version of the story.



Let's look first at pictures of Aglauros and her sisters with Erichthonius (aka Erechtheus), the child with the snake or snake's tail. I haven't been able to find the whereabouts of the upper picture, painted in 1620 by Jasper van der Laanen, although it was sold at auction quite recently. The slightly later picture (1635-40) below it is by Jacob Jordaens (now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna). Rubens also painted a picture on this theme just before van der Laanen (now in the Liechtenstein Museum).

The moment when Mercury, flying over Attica, first sees Herse has proved popular with artists. Jacob Pynas, who painted Mercury and Battus, also painted Mercury and Herse at around the same time in 1618 (painting now in Florence's Uffizi Gallery but not on their website). Thomas Blanchet's Mercury and Herse (1650) is now in the Portland Art Museum where its provenance is currently under investigation to see whether it was looted during the Second World War. Jan or Johann Boeckhorst also painted a Mercury and Hermes in the early 1650s (now in Vienna's Kunsthistorische Museum) Gerard Hoet's Mercury and Herse (1710) is now in Pasadena's Norton Simon Museum.

More unusually, Karel Dujardin painted this 1652 picture of Minerva visiting Envy (now in Vienna's Gemäldegalerie der Akademie der bildende Künste, but not as far as I can tell on its website).

Veronese painted a picture of Aglauros blocking Mercury's way to Herse in the late 1570s or early 1580s (now in Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum). Carel Fabritius painted the picture on the right, which shows Aglauros blocking Mercury's way (1646, now in Boston's Museum of Fine Arts). (The two pictures above are in the public domain from wikipedia, the one on the right is also in the public domain and is from museumsyndicate)

Callisto -- Paintings

(Picture by Torsten Bronger via wikipedia, used under GNU Free Documentation License)

As I said in a previous post, Jupiter's attempt to seduce Callisto and the discovery of her pregnancy by Diana have proved the main focus in the story for artists. Earlier artists (in the 16th century) seem to have been more attracted to Diana's discovery of Callisto's pregnancy, while later artists (in the 18th century) seem to have been more attracted to Jupiter's attempt to seduce Callisto. The 17th century presents more of a mixture of these themes.

Dosso Dossi painted the incident in 1528. The painting is now in Rome's Galleria Borghese but does not seem to be on their website.








Below are two versions of the subject by Titian: the top one is from the late 1550s and is now in Edinburgh's National Gallery of Scotland while the bottom one is from 1566 and is now in Vienna's Kunsthistorische Museum.





Paul Bril painted a landscape with Diana and Callisto, probably in the 1620s, while in the late 1630s Hendrick Bloemart painted this version of the scene (right).









Left is a 17th century engraving by Gérard de Lairesse while below left is an engraving based on a picture from the 1740s by Jacopo Amigoni. Although many art poster and reproduction sites on the internet offer colour pictures, none of the ones I've looked at give any information as to where the original might be.











In the 17th century, Rubens had painted both Callisto in two scenes. His 1613 picture Jupiter and Callisto is now in the Staatliche Museen Kassel (but not on their website as far as I can see), and Diana and Callisto in 1640 (now in the Prado, probably on their site, but they seem to actively discourage linking).

Jacob de Wit's 1727 painting now in Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum also shows Jupiter and Callisto.

François Boucher seems to have been particularly fond of the theme of Jupiter and Callisto. This 1744 example (below, top) is now in Moscow's Pushkin Museum (not in their online collection). New York's Metropolitan Museum has another painting dated 1763, while the Wallace Collection in London has a 1769 version. As a side note, some sites showing Boucher's Diana Leaving Her Bath (1742) (below, bottom) say that Diana's companion in the painting is Callisto, I don't know on what evidence. The Louvre's page on this picture says nothing about who she might be.





Richard Wilson painted a Landscape with Diana and Callisto (now in Liverpool's Lady Lever Gallery) in 1757. The reproduction on the gallery's website is rather small, but the text is very informative.

Slightly later than Boucher, Jean-Honore Fragonard produced a painting on this subject in 1778.
(Unless otherwise noted, all illustrations are public domain images from wikimedia commons.)