Jupiter and Antiope

The subject is taken from Greek mythology (Ovid, Metamorphoses). Antiope was a nymph or, according to some, the wife of a king of Thebes. She was surprised by Jupiter in the form of a Satyr while she was asleep, and was ravished by him. The theme was used at different art periods as a medium for portrayal of the female nude.

The subject of the painting can be identified unambiguously by the inscription ANTIOPA on the golden cloth just below the right thigh of the reclining nude, and by the presence of Jupiter's thunderbolt by the satyr's left leg.

The Jupiter and Antiope is perhaps Goltzius's most overtly lascivious painting, and one of the most erotically charged and explicit images in all seventeenth-century Dutch art.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 38 minutes): Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphony in C Major (Jupiter-Symphony) K 551