Offered by Antichità Castelbarco
The Rape of Europa - circle of Paolo De Matteis (Piano Vetrale, 1662 - Naples, 1728) oil on canvas (cm.) 57 x 98 - with gilded wooden frame 77 x 118 cm.
This beautiful painting, attributed to the circle of Paolo De Matteis (Piano Vetrale, 1662 – Naples, 1728), depicts, through a composition of great elegance, an episode drawn from Greek mythology: the abduction of the Phoenician princess Europa by Jupiter, as described by the Latin poet Ovid in his Metamorphoses. This myth was highly popular in Roman Baroque painting of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, often commissioned as a subject to adorn the sumptuous private rooms of the aristocratic palaces of Rome. The work depicts, in particular, the climax of the story in which the King of the Gods, having transformed himself into a bull to deceive her, seizes Europa by force and flees toward the island of Crete, swimming away proudly as he cuts through the churning waves of the sea. The princess does not appear terrified, but assumes a regal and languid pose, seated on the animal’s back while holding onto its horns, crowned with flowers and draped in a classical robe. With her left hand she holds a garland of flowers, while behind her a large golden drape billows, catching the wind. A flying cherub precedes the pair on the left, parting the clouds and holding a lit torch, a symbol of the passionate love that drove Zeus to perform this act, while two other cherubs move through the rippling waves, one on the left swimming and looking upward, while the one on the right flanks the bull’s tail, as if to escort and protect the divine crossing to Crete. On the rocky outcrop to the right, Europa’s three handmaids watch the scene helplessly, waving their arms and reaching out toward their princess, expressing grief and bewilderment at her sudden disappearance. On the left side, beyond the flying cherub, the coastline ends with a dark rocky promontory. In the distance, along the line of the sea horizon, one can make out the blurred outline of a fortified city, a symbol of her native Phoenicia, which Europa leaves behind forever. The composition and the classicism of the style, highlighted by the brilliant color palette, along with the painterly quality evident in the work, are characteristics that support its attribution to Paolo de Matteis, one of the most important painters of the Southern Italian Baroque. A leading pupil of Luca Giordano, he was able to blend his master’s vigorous Baroque style with a more graceful classicism, thanks to his preference for mythological subjects. Essential to his training was his stay in Rome (between 1682 and 1683), where he deeply absorbed the classicist teachings of Carlo Maratta, a proponent of an idealized classicism influenced by Raphael and Annibale Carracci, who modified the compositional grace and chromatic luminosity with his orderly and rigorous draftsmanship, anticipating the softness and elegance typical of 18th-century Rococo. Returning to the canvas in question, elements such as the idealized figure of Europa, the theatrical rendering of the waves, and the presence of the three fluttering little angels are characteristic expressions of his reinterpretations of the myths from Ovid’s Metamorphoses: in this specific case, the composition draws on the drawing of the same subject created by Maratta
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