Aegina Visited by Jupiter

Jean-Baptiste Greuze French

Not on view

Greuze insisted on submitting a painting to the Académie Royale that would gain him entry as a history painter, resulting in numerous false starts including this ambitious but unfinished canvas. It evokes the goddess Danaë, but may represent Aegina, daughter of the river god Aeopus who was visited by Jupiter and carried off by him in the form of an eagle. In 1767, Greuze wrote to Diderot that he “should very much like to paint a woman totally nude without offending modesty,” perhaps in reference to this work. In 1769, however, Greuze finally submitted a different subject, his ill-fated Septimus Severus and Caracalla, today in the Musée du Louvre.

Aegina Visited by Jupiter, Jean-Baptiste Greuze (French, Tournus 1725–1805 Paris), Oil on canvas

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