Abduction of Europa. The Abduction of Europa is Rembrandt's reinterpretation of the story, placed in a more contemporary setting.
Rembrandt developed an interest in the classical world early in his life while in Amsterdam which was a growing business-oriented center, and where he found work with great success. During this time, the international High Baroque style was popular.
Rembrandt did not complete many mythological subject paintings. Out of three hundred sixty completed works, five displayed tales from the Metamorphoses, five depicted goddesses, a Carthaginian queen, all of which only five represented myth subjects.
Rembrandt occasionally used these mythological paintings as allegory, applying the tale to some Christian theme or a moral tradition. Jacques Specx, of the Dutch East India Company, commissioned Rembrandt to complete The Abduction of Europa.
Specx had established a trading center in Japan in 1609, served as the Governor of Batavia, and later returned to Holland in 1633. The painting was in Specx's collection, along with five portraits, also by Rembrandt. The subject and its allegorical meaning are described by the Flemish art theorist, Karel van Mander, in Het schilder-boeck. Rembrandt The book was produced in Amsterdam and included details about many Netherlands painters. Rembrandt surely would have familiarized himself with van Mander's theories and interpretations of Ovid's myt
Rembrandt developed an interest in the classical world early in his life while in Amsterdam which was a growing business-oriented center, and where he found work with great success. During this time, the international High Baroque style was popular.
Rembrandt did not complete many mythological subject paintings. Out of three hundred sixty completed works, five displayed tales from the Metamorphoses, five depicted goddesses, a Carthaginian queen, all of which only five represented myth subjects.
Rembrandt occasionally used these mythological paintings as allegory, applying the tale to some Christian theme or a moral tradition. Jacques Specx, of the Dutch East India Company, commissioned Rembrandt to complete The Abduction of Europa.
Specx had established a trading center in Japan in 1609, served as the Governor of Batavia, and later returned to Holland in 1633. The painting was in Specx's collection, along with five portraits, also by Rembrandt. The subject and its allegorical meaning are described by the Flemish art theorist, Karel van Mander, in Het schilder-boeck. Rembrandt The book was produced in Amsterdam and included details about many Netherlands painters. Rembrandt surely would have familiarized himself with van Mander's theories and interpretations of Ovid's myt
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