(Naples 1634–1705)
The Rape of Europa,
oil on canvas, 122 x 173 cm, framed

Provenance:
with Salocchi, Florence;
Vittorio Cini (1885–1977) Collection, Venice;
Private European collection

The present painting is registered in the Fototeca Zeri (no. 54841) as Luca Giordano.

We are grateful to Riccardo Lattuada for confirming the attribution of the present painting after examination in the original.
We are also grateful to Giuseppe Scavizzi for independently confirming the attribution on the basis of a high resolution digital photograph.

The mythological subject of the Rape of Europa was treated by the artist on several occasions during the course of his long and prolific career. The history of the iconography of this subject, taken from Ovid’s Metamorphosis (II, 838-875), is rooted in the sixteenth century, when it was handled by many great artists. Titian was one such artist who depicted the subject in his celebrated canvas for Philip II of Spain (now Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston), which became established as the principal model for all the subsequent artists who undertook this subject.

Several versions of this subject are known by Luca Giordano, one, which is particularly large in scale is preserved at Burghley House, Stamford (251 x 322 cm) and dates to the early 1680s, another which is signed and dated 1686 is of slightly smaller size (227 x 193) and is at the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford Connecticut and is paired with the artist’s Rape of Helen in the same museum. These canvases crucially reveal the introduction of a significantly lighter palette to Giordano’s painting, along with the adoption of compositional solutions derived from Paolo Veronese (see: O. Ferrari, G. Scavizzi, Luca Giordano. L’opera completa, Naples 1992, vol. I, p. 302, no. A305, vol. II, p. 630, fig. 408 and vol. I, p. 319, no. A413, vol. II, p. 693, fig. 543).

The present painting most probably belongs to an earlier phase of Luca Giordano’s career, during the mid 1670s, when he was intensely engaged in the production of work for both private clients and important public commissions in Naples. It is comparable with other canvases depicting mythological subjects in which the influence of Pietro da Cortona’s painting style is evident. In the present painting the qualities of Baroque sensuality and dynamism predominate: here the young Europa has been abducted by Zeus, who having become infatuated with her, transformed himself into a bull to approach her and steal her away. Putti participate in the scene, and the one depicted on the lower right recalls another represented in reverse in a canvas of the same subject by Giordano, this is conserved in a private collection in Milan (see: O. Ferrari, G. Scavizzi, Luca Giordano. Nuove ricerche e inediti, Naples 2003, p. 63, no. A0145, p. 179, fig. A0145).

In Naples Luca Giordano was the apprentice of Jusepe de Ribera from whom he gained an interest in the naturalism of Caravaggio. Later, his painting style lossened up, employing a richer palette and a new expressive freedom, which was derived from his many formative travels to Rome, Venice and Parma. During his long and prolific career he not only executed prestigious commissions in Naples, but also in Venice, Padua and Florence where, during the 1680s, he frescoed the dome of the Carmine church, and the Salone of Palazzo Riccardi. Later, he was called to Spain by King Charles II where he worked in the Escorial, at the Royal Palace, Madrid, and at Toledo Cathedral.