Orpheus and Eurydice
Marcantonio Raimondi Italian
After? Francesco Francia Italian
Not on view
Marcantonio depicts the famed musician Orpheus (son of Apollo and the Muse Calliope) and his beloved Eurydice, who on their wedding day had been fatally bitten by a snake. The inconsolable groom descended to Hades, land of the dead, where his singing and lyre so charmed Pluto and Proserpina that he was allowed to lead Eurydice out of the Underworld. The moment shown may be when Eurydice, 'limping a little, from her late wound', as related by Ovid in his narrative poem 'Metamorphoses', was returned to Orpheus (Metamorphoses10.49).
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