Rape of Europa

In the middle of the 18th century Venice ran a busy trade in landscape painting, and Zuccarelli was its leading name. The subject here comes from Ovid: the god Jupiter takes the form of a gentle white bull, and the Phoenician princess Europa settles onto his back a moment before he carries her off across the sea. In other hands this is a scene of fright. Here the alarm is almost an afterthought. The canvas runs more than two metres wide, and most of that width is open pastoral country, soft hills and scattered trees, with the small figures gathered near the shore. Collectors of the day wanted precisely that, a classical story that left plenty of room for scenery. The Gallerie dell'Accademia has held the picture since 1923.