Bacchus Discovering Ariadne

In the 18th century paintings changed hands at auction all over Holland, and a painter in The Hague, Pieter Terwesten, published a register of those sales from 1752 to 1768, with the price each picture fetched. This canvas appears in it twice. At an anonymous sale in 1753 it went for 28 guilders. In 1768 it sold again, for 80, and the buyer named was Terwesten himself. About 50 years later it was in London, in the stock of Philippe Panné, a Flemish dealer, and after his death it was knocked down at Christie's for less than four pounds. The subject comes from Ovid. Ariadne, a princess of Crete, helped the Athenian prince Theseus escape from her father's labyrinth, and he left her asleep on the island of Naxos. Bacchus, the god of wine, comes upon her with his satyrs and falls in love. He is holding up her crown, which he will throw into the sky, where it becomes a constellation.