Coriolanus

I have written before about the life of Coriolanus as told by Livy and Plutarch and about Shakespeare's use of Plutarch's Life of Coriolanus. Irene Hahn of Roman History Books and More has written about Coriolanus in the arts, something I'd like to expand on.

Some time between 1495 and 1510 Michele da Verona painted Coriolanus Persuaded By His Family To Spare Rome, which is now in London's National Gallery. Towards the end of that period Luca Signorelli painted a fresco with the same title, also now in the National Gallery.

In the first half of the 17th century Nicolaus Knupfer produced a drawing of Coriolanus Receiving Roman Matrons, which is now in the British Museum. In the second quarter of the 17th century Bartolomeo Biscaino produced a painting of , which was sold in 2005, presumably to a private collection.



Poussin produced the above picture, Coriolanus Supplicated by His Mother, in 1650. It is now in Les Andelys's Musée Nicolas Poussin. (image from aiwaz.net used by permission)

Filippo Abbiati's picture Coriolanus Persuaded By His Family To Raise the Siege of Rome was painted in 1661 and is now in a private collection after being sold in 1996. In 1674 Gerbrand van den Eeckhout painted "Volumnia Before Coriolanus", now in Oregon's Portland Art Museum (it can be seen in this gallery view directly underneath the gallery name on the wall).



Around 1730, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo painted the above picture of Coriolanus, which is now in St. Petersburg's State Hermitage. (public domain picture from arthermitage.org)

In the 1780s, Giuseppe Bernadino Bison drew a picture of Coriolanus and the women of Rome which is now in Washington's National Gallery of Art.

In 1831 Jacques-Raymond Brascassat painted a more rural view of Coriolanus and his mother, now in the Monte Carlo Museum (scroll down to the bottom of the page).




In 1860 George Frederick Watts produced this study for a fresco in Bowood House. I have not been able to track down the location of the study so I assume it's in a private collection. More studies can be seen at London's Watts Gallery (search for Coriolanus). (public domain image from museumsyndicate.com)




The above statue of Virgilia by Thomas Woolner was produced in 1871 and is in Strawberry Hill, London. (wikimedia image used under GNU Free Documentation Licence)

Perseus and Andromeda: The 18th century

We continue our exploration of the theme of Perseus and Andromeda, moving into the 18th century with a picture painted in 1723 by François Lemoyne and now in London's The Wallace Collection. A few years later in 1727 Charles-Antoine Coypel also painted Perseus Rescuing Andromeda, which is now in Paris's Louvre. It is not on the Louvre's website, but can be seen in the Joconde database of artworks belonging to the French government. (wikicommons starmap by Roberto Mura used under creative commons licence)



In 1726, Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni returned to Venice from political exile. In honour of the occasion a serenata called Andromeda Liberata was commissioned and performed only to languish thereafter till it was rediscovered in 2002. It is a matter of some musicological dispute whether the serenata was composed by one musician or several, but it is certain that one of the arias, Sovvente il sole, was written by Antonio Vivaldi. The above YouTube extract has the finale from a 2006 performance in Cremona. The New York Times has a background piece to the manuscript's discovery.

In 1730, Tiepolo painted a picture now in New York's Frick Collection, as a study for a ceiling fresco now lost due to WWII bombing.



Anton Raphael Mengs produced the above picture in 1774-1777. It is now in St. Petersburg's State Hermitage. (public domain picture from wikicommons)



Lastly, in 1787 Michael Haydn (brother of the more famous Joseph) wrote an opera, "Andromeda und Perseus", an aria from which can be heard in the YouTube video embedded above.

Danae: the 18th Century

As we move on from the 16th and 17th centuries, our first painting of Danae is by Antonio Bellucci.



It was painted from 1700-1705 and is now in the Italian Chamber of Deputies in Rome. (Image taken from the Chamber of Deputies website as it does not appear to be possible to link directly to the picture. The link will take you to the website's home page.)



At the same time Paolo de' Matteis was painting the above picture, which is in the Detroit Institute of Arts, but not on their website.



The above picture was painted by Tiepolo around 1736 and is now in Stockholm's Universitet Konsthistoriska Institutionen, which does not seem to have a website.

Halfway through the century, Andrea Casali painted a picture of Danae which is now in Glasgow University's Hunterian Museum & Art Gallery.




Anne-Louis Girodet de Roucy-Trioson painted the above portait of the actress Mlle Lange as Danae in 1799. It is now in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. (Except where otherwise stated, the above images come from wikicommons and are in the public domain.)

Lucretia: The 18th to 20th Centuries

Having looked at Lucretia in the 16th century and 17th century, we now move on to some later pictures. Our first picture is by Mazzanti and dates from around 1730 and is in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Of the two 1750 paintings shown below, the upper one is by Casali and is in Budapest's Szépművészeti Múzeum, but does not seem to be shown on their website. However, another painting of Lucretia by Casali and dating to 1761 is now in Paris's Louvre. The lower picture here is by Tiepolo and is now in Augsberg's Staatsgalerie am Shaezler Palais, but again does not appear to be on their website.





Burne Jones painted a picture of Lucretia in 1867, although the image started off life as a design for a stained glass window. The picture is now in Birmingham's Museums and Art Gallery.

In the 20th century, Benjamin Britten wrote an opera called "The Rape of Lucretia". It is due to be performed in Philadelphia in June, 2009. An extract from the San Francisco Lyric Opera's production can be seen below.



This series of three posts by no means includes all of the Lucretias ever painted. You can see more pictures on the theme of Lucretia at:

ultraorange.net

The Lucretia in Art Project

The Visual History of the World

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)

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)