This etched landscape, created by the French artist Claude Lorrain (c. 1600-1682), features the ancient Greek myth of Europa, a princess from the lands of the Phoenicians. As the stories go, she was the daughter of a legendary or mythical Phoenician king named Agenor, and her brother was said to have been the mythically-important figure, Cadmus. Claude Lorrain’s artwork is set in Agenor’s kingdom, displaying city structures in the background and ships floating in the nearby sea. Europa, herself, can be seen near the foreground of the artwork, surrounded by her companions and attendants. Specifically, she is shown sitting atop a bull near the shoreline, to the right of the resting cows and underneath the massive tree in the center of the etching. Claude Lorrain’s artwork displays the earliest moments of the Europa myth, featuring a picturesque scene of peace and tranquility in Agenor’s kingdom—a status quo that the arrival of the bull would soon break.
As the story goes, the mysterious bull upon which Europa is riding had only recently wandered into King Agenor’s royal herds. Behaving in a friendly and unthreatening way, the bull befriended Europa, allowing her to groom him and dress up his horns with garlands. This charming friendship between beast and woman, however, was not all that it seemed. The mysterious bull was actually the deity, Zeus (or the Roman Jupiter), in disguise. As Zeus was a notoriously lusty god, the conclusion to Europa’s unfortunate tale should be no mystery. Taking advantage of Europa’s misplaced trust, Zeus soon lured the unsuspecting princess onto his back, and once she fell for his trap, the magical god raced out over the depths of the sea, so that she could do nothing else but continue to cling to her kidnapper. This scene was described by the Roman poet, Ovid (43 BCE-17 CE):
“The princess even ventured to sit with her legs astride
on the back of the bull, unaware whose sides she was resting her thighs on;
when Jupiter, gradually edging away from the land and away
from the dry shore, placed his imposter’s hooves in the shallowest waves,
then advanced out further, and soon he was veering the spoils of his victory
out in mid-ocean. His frightened prize looked back at the shore
she was leaving behind, with her right hand clutching one horn and her left
on his back for support, while her fluttering dress swelled out in the sea breeze”
(Ovid, Metamorphoses, 2.868-875).
Claude Lorrain’s artwork captures the moments before Zeus carried Europa out to sea. It shows the princess still safe in her Phoenician homeland and surrounded by her friends, a setting which would soon be a distant blur on the horizon as Zeus carried her away. After the abduction, Zeus was said to have carried Europa to the island of Crete. There, the god got what he wanted, one way or the other. According to myth, Europa had several children with Zeus, including Rhadamanthys, Sarpedon and King Minos. Back in Phoenicia, King Agenor was said to have sent his son, Cadmus, on a rescue mission to save Europa. Nevertheless, Cadmus knew he was no match for Zeus, so he chose not to pick a fight with the ruler of Olympus. Not able to go back home empty-handed to his father, King Agenor, Cadmus instead paid a visit to the Oracle at Delphi and was directed from there to travel to Boeotia, where Cadmus was attributed with founding Thebes.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
Sources:
- Metamorphoses by Ovid. Translated by David Raeburn. Penguin Classics; Revised Edition, 2004.
- https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.30848.html
