Adriaen van der Werff (Kralingen-Ambacht, now Rotterdam 1659-1722 Rotterdam, active in Duesseldorf, Germany)

Jupiter and Io

oil on canvas

late 17th century

canvas: 17½ x 12⅞ in. (41.5 x 32.5 cm)

framed: 22 x 18½ in. (55.9 x 47 cm)

Publication History:

Eduard Fuchs, Geschichte der erotischen Kunst [History of Erotic Art] (Munich: Verlag Albert Langen, 1930) (1st ed. 1908), three volumes, Vol. 1 (Das zeitgeschichtliche Problem), ill. 76 (reproductive engraving, opposite pg. 94) (with the caption "Adrian van der Werff: L'illusion vaut quelquefois la réalité [The illusion is sometimes worth the reality].  17 Jahrhundert").

Discussion:

"The composition of this canvas has its roots in an early 17th-century painting of Jupiter and Io by Matthäus Gundelach (see Sotheby's, London, 7 December 2017, lot 139, oil on panel, 61 by 39.8 cm), an Imperial Kammermaler of Rudolf II and close associate of Joseph Heintz the Elder.  That work by Gundelach, which was likely completed in Prague and dates to about 1610-1614, in turn drew clear inspiration from Correggio's well-known 16th-century painting of the same subject, which entered the Imperial Collection of Rudolf II in the first decade of the seventeenth century (now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna). By the early 19th century, Gundelach's painting had entered a prominent Prussian collection, where it descended for generations."  S