The Venetian painter Titian and his workshop made at least six versions of the same composition showing Danaë (or Danaë and the Shower of Gold), painted between about 1544 and the 1560s. The scene is based on the mythological princess Danaë, as – very briefly – recounted by the Roman poet Ovid, and at greater length by Boccaccio. She was isolated in a bronze tower following a prophecy that her firstborn would eventually kill her father.In other accounts it was a bronze dungeon. Although aware of the consequences, Danaë was seduced and became pregnant by Zeus (in Roman mythology Jupiter), who, inflamed by lust, descended from Mount Olympus to seduce her in the form of a shower of gold.
Though the composition, especially the main figure, is essentially the same, the six or more versions vary considerably. The major surviving versions are in Naples, London, Madrid, Vienna, Chicago, and St. Petersburg. The voluptuous figure of Danaë, with legs half spread, hardly changes, and was probably traced from a studio drawing or version.Titian's usual practice in replicas, Jaffé, 64–66 Her bed and its hangings are another constant. Other elements vary considerably; the first version, now in Naples, was painted between 1544–46, and is the only one with a figure of Cupid at the right, rather than an old woman catching the shower of gold. She is a different figure at each appearance, though the pose in the Hermitage follows the Prado version. The small dog resting at Danaë's side in the Prado and Chicago versions is generally absent.
The works influenced the compositions of many artists including Rembrandt,Sluijter, 225 Anthony van Dyck and Gustav Klimt, who all painted versions of the scene. Giorgio Vasari recounts a visit with Michelangelo to Titian's studio, where they saw the original in progress. Michelangelo praised Titian's use of colour in the Madrid painting, though later, in private, he was critical of Titian's draftsmanship.Northcote, 273
Legend of Danaë According to Greek mythology, as it would have been known to Titian through Ovid's Metamorphoses, Boccaccio's Genealogia Deorum Gentilium, and probably Terence,Bull, 177–181; Metamorphoses. 4.611–613; Boccaccio, Genealogia Deorum Gentilium, Book II, Chapters 32 and 33, google books when her father Acrisius consulted the oracle on how he would get male children, he was told that his daughter would bear a son who would kill him. Acrisius then locked up and guarded his daughter Danaë in a subterranean dungeon, or alternatively a windowless tower room – a detail Titian ignores in most versions, giving a view at least to the sky on the right of the picture. Danaë, aware of the consequences, allowed herself to be seduced and impregnated by Zeus, who broke through the defences by appearing in the form of a shower of gold,Kaminski, 89Santore, Cathy. "The Renaissance Courtesan's Alter Ego". Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 54/3, 1991. 412 which in ancient times had already been envisaged as a shower of gold coins, and the myth taken as a metaphor for prostitution, although the parallels with conventional depictions of the Annunciation were also part of Renaissance awareness.Bull, 178–181; In some depictions, notably Rembrandt's, Danaë, Jupiter/Zeus is shown as beams of light, God is in paintings of the Annunciation. See Westermann, 121
When Acrisius learned of Danaë's son Perseus, he refused to believe Zeus's role, and cast mother and child adrift at sea in a chest. They landed at Seriphus, where Perseus was raised by Dictys. Perseus eventually fulfilled the prophecy by killing Acrisius years afteralthough accidentally.Bull, 178 Danaë was seen in the Middle Ages and Renaissance as a symbol of the corrupting effect of wealth, which could taint even feminine beauty or moral virtue.
Series Danaë's pose is consistent throughout the various versions. She is naked or with a draped thigh, lying on a couch with her knees raised and her legs half-parted. The painting is a development of Titian's compositions with a reclining female nude in the Venetian style. After Giorgione's death in 1510, Titian completed his Dresden Venus, which began the tradition, and around 1534 painted the Venus of Urbino.Bull, 62 Kenneth Clark sees the Danaë as Titian adopting the conventions for the nude prevailing outside Venice; "in the rest of Italy bodies of an entirely different shape had long been fashionable". The many versions of the Venus and Musician (1540s onwards) retain the smooth curves of the Venetian convention, here plump as a seal.Clark, 122–123, 122 quoted
According to Clark, the pose is "clearly based on drawings of Michelangelo, and is in fact similar to that of the Night, reversed and opened out.... At every point Michelangelo's grandiose invention has been transformed from an embodiment of spiritual malaise into an embodiment of physical satisfaction".Clark, 123; Hale, 463–464 George Bull suggests as sources Primaticcio's painting of the subject at the Chateau of Fontainebleau, which Titian probably knew from a print, and Correggio's Danaë (c. 1531).Bull, 155; Hale, 463–464
After the original in Naples, where Cupid is to her right, he is replaced by an elderly maid, holding out a cloth or dish to catch the gold coins spilling down from an explosion of colour in the sky which represents Zeus.Ridolfi, Carlo & Bondanella, Julia Conway. The Life of Titian. Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996. 117. This figure is retained in later versions (except for Chicago), though changing in pose, appearance and action. It allows "a series of sophisticated counterpoints: youth versus old age; beauty versus loyalty; a nude figure versus a dressed figure".Prado Her undoubted unattractiveness, pronounced in some versions, draws attention by comparison to the beauty of Danaë.Prado; Kaminski, 106 In at least some versions, she also matches the conventional appearance in art of a "procuress" (as art historians like to call them) or brothel-keeper. The left side of each canvas is an interior, although sometimes showing a distant landscape view.
While the series freely describes desirable flesh in an overtly sexual manner, Titian transforms the motifs of courtesans and carnal desire into the more highbrow realm of classical myth.
Original, Naples version
The first version was painted in both Rome and Venice for Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, whose grandfather then reigned as Pope Paul III. The papal nuncio in Venice saw it in progress, and in September 1544 wrote cheerfully to the cardinal comparing it to Titian's earlier nude, the Venus of Urbino. He described it as looking like "a Theatine nun", that would arouse even Cardinal Tommaso Badia. At least "Theatine" is usually assumed to mean a nun, although it has been suggested that the term was also a "term of abuse to refer to any 'ultra-conservative Catholic' killjoy".Loh, 32
The features of Danaë, broadly retained in the later versions, are based on the cardinal's courtesan mistress Angela; Giulio Clovio had sent Titian a likeness from Rome for him to use.Jaffé, 132; NGA It seems likely that it was intended originally simply as a portrait of Farnese's mistress, possibly loosely identified as Venus by the presence of the Cupid. The Council of Trent began in December 1545 as it was being finished, and the cardinal became worried about an overt display of his affair; even though few would see the paintings in his private apartments, word would no doubt get around. The face was slightly de-individualised, and either artist or patron had the idea of turning the painting into one of Danaë.Hale, 463
It is the only major version where a Cupid stands at Danaë's feet, the other versions have an aged servant. Presumably once Titian introduced this in Philip II's version, he preferred it and used it thereafter. Danaë's bed seems to lie in an open loggia, or beside a large window. The base of a large classical column occupies the background of the centre of the painting, and to the right of that there is an elevated view of trees and distant hills, not very clearly defined. The settings of Titian's several versions of the Venus and Musician series, also centred on a reclining nude, are comparable. The other major Danaë versions all replace the large column with more red drapery, and (except for Chicago and St Petersburg) have an even less clearly depicted outside background, mainly of sky. The cloth over Danaë's thigh is also not seen again. The burst of light that showers coins and on which Danaë's heavy gaze falls is flanked by dark clouds that appear to be moving towards the centre of the canvas. They spill heavy rain, which falls parallel to Zeus's coins.Kaminski, 106
This version passed by descent through the Farnese family to the royal collection in Naples, and is now in the National Museum of Capodimonte, Naples.Museum page
Philip II's version, and the Prado's
Philip II of Spain commissioned a second version, painted in 1549–50, as the first of a series of mythological paintings described by Titian as "poesie" ("poems").Kaminski, 105 Venus and Adonis, the next to be painted, was designed to be viewed alongside Danaë, although not of the same size.Falomir video; Penny, 203, says "probably" delivered in 1550. Titian explained in a letter to Philip that the two paintings would offer contrasting front and rear views of a nude Venus, thus allowing painting to compete with sculpture.Penny, 284
Until very recently it was assumed that the Prado version was this one, but after cleaning and conservation in 2013 of a work in the collection of the Duke of Wellington, it became clear that Philip's version, after some 250 years in the Spanish royal collection, was given to the first Duke of Wellington after the British army captured a carriage full of paintings from the Spanish royal collection at the Battle of Vitoria in 1813.Kauffmann, 9–11
Joseph Bonaparte, whose brother Napoleon had made him King of Spain, had already lost Madrid, escaping with over 200 paintings in the carriage. Most had been removed from their frames and were rolled up in a large "imperial" or travelling-chest, along with state papers, love letters, and other documents. After a quick look, Wellington and his staff thought there was nothing very important or valuable in it, but sent the imperial by sea to his brother William, Lord Maryborough (then) in London for a proper check. His brother called in William Seguier, later the first keeper of the National Gallery, who recognised the quality of the paintings and compiled a list of 165 of the most important works.
Wellington then informed the court of the restored Bourbon King Ferdinand VII of Spain, to make arrangements for their return, but the king said Wellington should keep them as a gift.Kauffmmann, 11–12; Apsley, 1; "Apsley House collection", English Heritage The Arnolfini Portrait by Jan van Eyck was also in the carriage, but (being conveniently small) appears to have been looted by the soldiers, and next appeared in London in 1816 in the possession of Colonel James Hay, a Scottish colonel who had been at Vitoria.Campbell, Lorne, The Fifteenth Century Netherlandish Paintings, 176, National Gallery, 1998,
Wellington's version, previously thought to be a copy, remains in the family, at Apsley House in London, but not in the parts of the house open to the public. It and two other Titians reattributed at the same time were briefly put on public exhibition there, for the first time, in 2015.Apsley, 10 Until January 2021 it was in an exhibition at the National Gallery, London."Titian: Love, Desire, Death", Until 17 January 2021