Jupiter et Antiope

By 1851 Ingres was 71 and the grand old man of French classical painting, the defender of clean line against the colour and drama of the younger Romantics. This is a small canvas, barely larger than a sheet of paper, and it returns to a subject he had circled for years: the god Jupiter, disguised as a shaggy satyr, drawing the cover back from the sleeping Theban woman Antiope. A small winged Cupid crouches at her side. Ingres gives her the same smooth, boneless curves as the harem nudes he had painted earlier, the body arranged for the eye more than for anatomy. The satyr's dark, hairy bulk leans in from one side while she lies pale and unguarded, not yet awake.