The Deliverance of Arsinoe

Tintoretto painted this around 1556 in Venice, a city that lived by its ships and its sea power, and he clearly relished the water. Two women slip from a dark tower into a small boat on a heaving green sea, one still trailing broken chains, while a muscular rescuer leans into the oars. The story is an old one from Roman Egypt: Arsinoe, a half-sister of Cleopatra, held prisoner after Julius Caesar backed Cleopatra, freed by night from her tower. Tintoretto cared less for the history than for the bodies, the twisting nudes and the wet light on skin that Venice prized. The chains sliding off her wrists are the one clear sign that this smooth escape was ever an imprisonment.