AMIGONI, Jacopo
(b. 1682, Napoli, d. 1752, Madrid)

Bacchus and Ariadne

1730s
Oil on canvas, 104 x 129 cm
Private collection

Amigoni had spent his early career in Venice, but he left the city to make a name for himself as an international artist, quickly finding an avid audience in the various courts of Europe which had developed a taste for the charm of the Venetian Rococo. In 1730, Amigoni arrived in London fresh from a series of pictorial triumphs in Venice, Rome and at the court of the Elector of Bavaria, and soon had eager patrons amongst the English nobility and even royalty.

The pair of canvases of mythological subjects, Venus and Adonis, and Bacchus and Ariadne, represent one of the most important works by Amigoni from his seminal English sojourn. These subjects represent two of the most recognizable and classic of all mythological stories, both with a rich history of pictorial representation in Venetian art. They are taken from Ovid's Metamorphoses, and in the case of Venus and Adonis, Amigoni returned to the subject throughout his career.