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Core Record |
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| Title | Jupiter and Io | |
| Alternative Title | Small Classical Landscape with Jupiter and Io | |
| Collection | Holburne Museum of Art, Bath | |
| Artist | Attributed to Monogrammist MB Previously attributed to Berg, Matthias van der Previously attributed to Lauri, Filippo (Italian painter, 1623-1694) |
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| Date Earliest | possibly about 1700 | |
| Date Latest | possibly about 1800 | |
| Signed | yes | |
| Description | When Jupiter fell in love with the priestess Io, to protect her from the jealousy of his wife, Juno, he transformed Io into a white heifer. Here the astonished creature provides the central focus of the composition. Jupiter is seated in the right foreground, he gazes up at jealous Juno who is depicted in the cloud above. Juno has placed a possessive arm around the peacock in whose tail she had inserted the hundred eyes of the giant Argus, whom she had set to guard over the heifer. | |
| Current Accession Number | A199 | |
| Inscription | front lr 'MB' | |
| Subject | mythology (Jupiter, Io) | |
| Measurements | 16.5 x 21.6 cm cm (estimate) | |
| Material | oil on metal (copper) | |
| Acquisition Details | Bequeathed by Miss Mary Anne Barbara Holburne 1882. | |
| Provenance | Sir Thomas William Holburne, by 1867-74; by descent to Mary Anne Barbara Holburne (1802-1882), 1874. | |
| Publications | Catalogue of the Pictures and Library, Engravings, Etchings and Miniatures belongingto Sir Thomas William Holburne, Bart., Bath, 1867, cat. no. 64, p. 4, as Small Classical Landscape with Jupiter and Io by Filippo Lauri; Chaffers, W., Catalogue of the Holburne of Menstrie Art Museum Bath, London, 1887, cat. no. 1383, p. 68 as Small Classical Landscape, with Jupiter and Io by Fillippo Lauri; Moeckler, F., Holburne of Menstrie Art Museum, Bath, 1902, cat. no. 142, p. 5, as Jupiter and Juno by Matthias Van der Berg; Wright, C., Old Master Paintings in Britain: An Index of Continental Old Master Paintings Executed before c. 1800 in Public Collections in the United Kingdom, London, 1976, p. 140, as Juno and Argus. | |
| Notes | Several artists are identified only by the monogram 'M. B.'. The present work may be the hand of an eighteenth-century artist, perhaps the M.B. who was active in Flanders in the eighteenth century. H. A. Buttery rejected the attribution to Matthias van der Berg, and described A199 as 'bad', 1906. |
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| Rights Owner | © The Holburne Museum of Art, Bath | |
| Author | Dr Susan Steer | |