Jupiter Rebuked by Venus

Description

Abraham Janssens, Peter Paul Rubens's major competitor in Antwerp in the 1610s, produced monumental paintings of mythological and secular subjects. Influenced by his five-year stay in Rome, he injected his paintings with recognizable quotations from ancient sculpture and Italian Renaissance painting. This scene of Venus reprimanding the visibly annoyed Jupiter on Mount Olympus is a direct reference to a composition by the Italian artist Raphael on the ceiling of the Villa Farnesina in Rome. Janssens, however, enhanced the power and dynamism of the figures by emphasizing their musculature and working on a larger scale.

Provenance

John Gage Predergast Vereker, 5th Viscount Gort (died 1902), Durham; offered for sale by his estate, Christie’s, London, 20 December 1902, lot 115, as Luca Giordano, bought in. Private collection, Ireland. Sold, Sotheby’s, London, 17 November 1982, no. 12, to Patrick Matthiesen, London; sold to the Art Institute, December 1986.

Jupiter Rebuked by Venus

Abraham Janssens

c. 1612

Accession Number

64996

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

197.5 × 237.5 cm (77 3/4 × 93 1/2 in.); Framed: 231.1 × 271.8 × 7.6 cm (91 × 107 × 3 in.)

Classification

oil on canvas

Museum

The Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, United States

Credit Line

Purchased with funds provided by The Old Masters Society; the Alexander A. McKay Endowment