Danae

Allegri Antonio called Correggio

(Correggio c. 1489 - 1534)

Together with Leda, Ganymede Abducted by the Eagle, and Jupiter and Io, this painting forms part of a well-known series of Jupiter’s loves, painted by Correggio for Federico II Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, who in turn gave them to Charles V. The gift was perhaps made in Bologna in 1530, or more likely in November 1532, when the Emperor stayed in Mantua. The subject of the work is Danaë, daughter of King Acrisius, locked up in a tower to prevent her giving birth to children. The scene depicts the moment in which she couples with Jupiter, who according to Ovid took the form of a golden rain. Perseus was born of that union; as the oracle predicted, he killed the Argive king.

The composition is one of the rare works by Correggio set in an indoor, domestic space. The scene is enriched by the presence of Hymen, protector of marriage, and by two cupids who test the purity of the gold on a touchstone, a gesture which alludes to Jupiter’s genuine love for the princess, which is deemed here to be pure and priceless

Object details

Commentary

According to Giorgio Vasari (1550; 1568) – who perhaps received the information from Giulio Romano, who was based on Mantua – this canvas was commissioned to Antonio Allegri by Duke Federico II Gonzaga, who in turn donated it to Emperor Charles V. Federico was indeed greatly obliged to Charles for having elevated him to the rank of duke in 1530. In the Lives, Vasari indeed wrote of ‘two [paintings] that he did in Mantua for Duke Federico II, to be sent to the emperor’, specifically, one with ‘the nude figure of Leda and the other [...] a Venus [sic]’. That the latter no doubt refers to this Danaë is confirmed by, among other things, the unmistakable detail of the two cupids noted by Vasari, ‘who were making trial of their arrows [...] on a stone’ – which is in fact visible here in the lower right hand corner.

Executed in 1530-31, the work formed part of a series of four paintings depicting Jupiter’s loves (Jupiter and Io, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, inv. no. GG274; Ganymede Abducted by the Eagle, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, inv. no. GG276; and Leda and the Swan, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, inv. no 218). The series represents a refined and sophisticated homage which alludes – through the transformed figure of the father of the gods – to the Emperor himself, given that Charles’s emblem, the eagle, corresponds to the divine attribute. As Verheyen (1966) suggested, however, it is also possible that the duke commissioned the entire cycle for himself, perhaps destined for the ‘Ovid Room’ in the Palazzo Te in Mantua. According to this theory, Federico gave them to Charles only after the latter saw and obtained the first two canvases – Jupiter and Io and Ganymede Abducted by the Eagle – which the duke donated to him with the promise that he would also soon receive the other works. (According to Verheyen, the cycle, which was executed for Federico’s lover Isabella Boschetti, consisted of many other paintings, a theory deduced from the correspondence between the duke and the governor of Parma in 1534.) Whichever hypothesis is correct, it is certain that the painting was given to Charles V, perhaps in 1530 or more likely in November 1532 (Gould 1976).

Subsequently, the painting returned to Italy by various possible routes. Here it was seen by Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo in 1584 in the Milanese collection of the sculptor Leone Leoni (Lomazzo 1584). At present, we do not know the details of how Leone’s son Pompeo came into possession of the canvas before sending it to his father in Lombardy. One theory is that he obtained it from the emperor himself; another that he purchased it through Antonio Pérez, secretary of Ruy Gómez de Silva, Prince of Eboli, who in turn could have received it from Philip II, Charles’s son (Delaforce 1982). As the variety of opinions on this complex topic shows (Verheyen 1966; Quintavalle 1970, Gould 1976; Bacchi 1997; Fabiansky 2000; Hoeninger 2001), the ‘transfer’ is still a debated point among critics. The story is further complicated by the nearly contemporary presence of the Danaë in Leoni’s collection in Milan (1584) and Perez’s in Madrid (1585): this dilemma can only be resolved by assuming either that the painting moved from Italy to Spain in a short space of time, or that a copy existed.

In any case, a recent study (Rudolf 2002) showed that the Leoni Danaë was sold by him to Rudolf II in Prague in 1601 through the ambassador Hans Khevenhüller, entering into the imperial collections. Here it was indeed mentioned in the inventory of 1621 (Zimmermann 1905, no. 894). Taken to Stockholm by Swedish troops at the end of the Thirty Years’ War (1648), it came into possession of Christina of Sweden, who brought it with her to Rome in 1655. It was indeed seen and praised in her collection by the erudite Giovanni Michele Silos, who was based in the Eternal City in 1673 (Silos 1673, ed. 1979). In 1689, Christina gave the work to Cardinal Decio Azzolini, who bequeathed it to his nephew Pompeo Azzolini.

In 1697, the Danaë was sold to Prince Livio Odescalchi. Through Marquis Baldassarre Erba Odescalchi, it came into possession of first Pierre Crozat and then Philippe II, Duke of Orleans (Gould, 1976). In 1780, the work found its way onto the London art market, together with much of the collection of the powerful French prince. In 1816, it passed into the hands of the Duke of Bridgewater, who ceded it to Henry Hope, who in turn sold it to the Parisian antiques dealer Bonnemaison. It was from the last-named figure that Camillo Borghese purchased the work in 1827 for 285 pounds. (Gould 1976). On its journey back to Italy it was intentionally mislabelled: this was the expedient concocted by Evasio Gozzani to avoid paying a burdensome import tax in the Papal States (M. Minozzi in Correggio 2008). Once in Rome, the work was first taken to Palazzo Borghese in Campo Marzio and then to the Casino di Porta Pinciana in 1891. Together with other masterpieces, it remained here after the sale of the Borghese possessions to the Italian state in 1902. As Marina Minozzi (2008) explained, following its return to the Eternal City it was viewed and admired by important artists and experts of the time, who were captivated by its beauty. In particular, the great painter Vincenzo Camuccini sang its praises, immediately recognising the hand of Allegri ‘[...] in the elegance of the chiaroscuro masses, in the brightness and transparency of the colours, in the smoothness and softness of the rendering of the hair’ (Minozzi 2008).

With regard to the subject of the canvas, Correggio undoubtedly managed to give an interpretation to one of the images most dear to 16th-century painting in a way which downplays its erotic character. Here Danaë prudently alludes to the carnal union narrated by Ovid by delicately raising the white sheet – symbol of the virginal veil – from her abdomen to receive her divine lover, who taking the form of a golden rain moistens her womb while covering her in coins. A young winged boy of striking beauty assists the princess: he is Hymen, protector of marriage, depicted here while he examines the first drops of rain in the palm of his hand. Not by chance does this gesture occupy the centre of the scene: it compels the observer to move her gaze toward the lap of the beautiful Argive. In the lower portion of the scene, Eros and his companion, perhaps Anteros, are shown puffed up with love as they assess the purity of the gold – and therefore also the authenticity of Jupiter’s feeling – by rubbing the tip of an arrow and one of the coins on a touchstone. Their expressions, rendered with great ease, constitute one of the most poignant proofs of Correggio’s remarkable skill. Likewise, the representation of the flesh and the tender wings attest to the painter’s talent. The latter motif identifies the little boy on the right as celestial love, shown face-to-face with his inseparable fellow, the personification of earthly love.

In 1957, Arthur Ewart Popham pointed out two drawings related to this painting, both held in Besançon. One of these is of special interest, as it depicts Danaë in a different position from the one that she adopts in the canvas. An 18th-century engraving by Étienne Desrochers (British Museum, inv. 1837, 0408.338), finally, suggests that the painting was actually executed in 1531.

Antonio Iommelli