Danae and Jupiter

Painted by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo in 1736, this small canvas draws on Ovid's Metamorphoses. Fearing an oracle that foretold his death at the hands of a grandson, Acrisius locked his daughter Danae in a tower of bronze, yet Zeus reached her in the form of a golden shower. Tiepolo's treatment is ironic rather than solemn. Earlier, Tintoretto had shown Danae as a calculating woman counting gold coins with a maid's help, and Tiepolo pushes that idea further with a grotesque touch. Danae lies on her side among baroque sheets, her face showing boredom, while Cupid stands beside her, trying in vain to rouse her. On the right, an old servant with a slightly caricatured face catches the gold in a tray. Jupiter arrives without disguise, as a wrinkled old man on a cloud, his cloak billowing and his beard swept back by his haste. In the lower corner a dog barks at the eagle, Jupiter's emblem. The painting sets the stillness of Danae against the restless god, turning a myth of desire into a parody.

Painter

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

Date

1736

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

41 × 53 cm

Museum

Stockholm University

Genre

mythological painting

Depicts

Danaë, Jupiter

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