(c) 2019 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

(c) 2022 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

The Rape of Europa

painter Titian (Pieve di Cadore, about 1488 - 1576, Venice)

Date1559-1562

Place MadeItaly, Europe

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions178 x 205 cm (70 1/16 x 80 11/16 in.)

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LineIsabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Accession numberP26e1

eMuseum ID717524

EmbARK ObjectID10978

TMS Source ID236

Last Updated11/16/24

Status

Not on view

Web Commentary

Bewildered, the abducted Europa clings with one hand to a horn of the god Jupiter, who appears disguised as a bull in order to seduce her. She raises the alarm to her companions on the shore with her other hand, frantically waving a length of red silk that flashes yellow in the sunlight. The women left behind return her call for help with their own signals of distress. A cherub races after the kidnapped princess on a dolphin.

Jupiter raped Europa on the island of Crete, where their son founded the Minoan dynasty, the ancestor of all European civilizations. Europa’s Middle Eastern and African heritage and her forced migration were as integral to the myth of Europe’s origins as they are to its identity today.

Titian’s Rape of Europa was the crown jewel of Isabella Stewart Gardner’s collection. It was the first authentic painting by Titian to reach the United States. In the museum, she surrounded it with an eclectic and highly personal grouping of objects, including a textile with a tassel pattern echoing the bull's tail from a ball gown by her favorite fashion designer, Worth of Paris. What other connections can you find?

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MarksNotesSigned beneath the foot of the putto riding the dolphin (recto, lower left): TITIANVS.P.

Printed and handwritten label (affixed to the back of the frame, right): N.B. This Label to be fixed to the back of the frame (not the canvas) of the Picture.... Royal A(cademy) Exhibition of Works By the Old Masters, 1888 / Name of Artist... Titian / Title of Work... Europa / Name and Address of Owner... Earl of Darnley / Cobham Hall Gravesend

Printed label in red ink (affixed to the back of the frame, left): 67

Label measuring 2 x 1.5 cm (recto, lower right corner): no 715 [?]
Label (affixed to the vertical crossbar of the stretcher, top): No. 257.
Red label printed (affixed to the vertical crossbar of the stretcher, top): Exhibition/of/TREASURES/1857/The Earl Darnley [in pen] Proprietor
Label printed (affixed to the vertical crossbar of the stretcher, top): 1
Fragmentary label inscribed in pen and ink (vertical crossbar of the stretcher, upper right): 12 -/ - wope

ProvenanceNotes

Painted for Philip II, King of Spain (1527–1598) between 1559 and 1562 in Venice.

Shipped to Madrid between March and April 1562; with Philip II by summer 1562.

By inheritance to Philip III, King of Spain (1568–1621).

By inheritance to Philip IV, King of Spain (1605–1665).

Given to Charles I of England (1600–1649), then Prince of Wales, in anticipation of his wedding to Philip IV's sister in 1623 but the painting was left in Madrid after marriage negotiations broke down.

Transferred to one of the rooms of the Cuarto Bajo de Verano in the north-eastern part of Alcázar, where it was seen by Cassiano dal Pozzo in 1626 (Cassiano dal Pozzo 2004 edn, pp. 230-1).

Recorded in the same room with four other poesie in the 1636 inventory of Alcázar (Martinez Leiva and Rodriguez Rebollo 2007, p. 183, no. 1103), with several other mythological works by Titian.

By inheritance to Charles II, King of Spain (1661-1700).

Listed in the 1666 inventory of Alcázar (inv.941), in a different room adjacent to the Garden of Roman Emperors, on the ground floor in the south-eastern part of the palace.

Recorded in the same room, now nicknamed the Bóvedas de Tiziano, in the 1686 inventory of Alcázar (inv. 891).

By inheritance to Philip V, King of Spain (1683–1746).

Presented to Antoine, 4th Duc de Gramont (1641–1720), French ambassador to the Spanish court in 1704, together with the two Dianas from the series of poesie.

Presented to the French regent, Philippe II, duc d'Orléans (1674–1723) probably around 1707 and certainly before 1721.

Installed in the western part of the Palais Royal in Paris, in the so-called Galerie à Lanterne, where it remained until the French Revolution (inv. 465).

By descent to Louis-Philippe-Joseph, duc d'Orléans (Philippe Égalité, 1747–1793).

Sold to Édouard de Walckiers (1758–1837) of Brussels (but resident in Paris) from Orléans in 1792.

Sold in the same year to his cousin François-Louis-Joseph de Laborde-Méréville (1761–1801), Paris.

Transported to London in 1793 and consigned to Jeremiah Harman (1763–1844).

Sold in 1798 to the dealer Michael Bryan (1757–1821), acting on behalf of a British syndicate consisting of Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater (1736–1803), his nephew George Granville Leveson-Gower, Earl of Gower (1758–1833), later 2nd Marquess of Stafford and 1st Duke of Sutherland, and Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle (1748–1825), husband of Lord Gower's sister.

Purchased by Thomas Noel Hill, 2nd Baron of Berwick (1770–1832), at the Bryan Orléans collection sale at the Lyceum, London on 26 December 1798, lot 220 for 700 guineas (J.I. Armstrong-Totten in New Orleans 2018, p. 250, no. 465).

Acquired by John Bligh, 4th Earl of Darnley (1767–1831), Cobham Hall, Kent by 1816.

By descent to John Stuart Bligh, 6th Earl of Darnley (1827–1896), Cobham Hall, Kent in 1831.

Purchased by the art dealers Colnaghi & Co., London on 15 June 1896 for £14,000.

Purchased by Isabella Stewart Gardner from Colnaghi & Co., June 1896 for £20,000 through the American art historian Bernard Berenson (1865–1959).