06 Paintings, Olympian deities, The tale of Eurydice, with footnotes # 42

MASTER OF THE CAMPANA CASSONI, active in Florence 1503 - 1527

EURYDICE AND HER COMPANIONS: A CASSONE PANEL

Oil on panel

24½ by 59 in.; 62.2 by 149.9 cm.

Private collection

Eurydice was the wife of Orpheus, who loved her dearly; on their wedding day, he played joyful songs as his bride danced through the meadow. One day, Aristaeus, a minor god in Greek mythology,  saw and pursued Eurydice, who stepped on a viper, was bitten, and died instantly.

MASTER OF THE CAMPANA CASSONI, active in Florence 1503 - 1527

Aristaeus peruses Eurydice, who steps on a viper

Oil on panel

Musee des Art Decoratifs, Paris

MASTER OF THE CAMPANA CASSONI, active in Florence 1503 - 1527

EURYDICE DIES

Oil on panel

61 X 69

National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin

All the nymphs and deities wept and told Orpheus to travel to the Underworld to retrieve her, which he did. After his music softened the hearts of Hades and Persephone, he was allowed to take her back to the world of the living. A condition was attached that he must walk in front of her and not look back until both had reached the upper world. 

MASTER of the Cassoni Campana, (active 1500-1525 in Florence), French or Italian painter named after four panels of a cassone purchased for the Louvre by Napoleon III from the collection of Giampietro Campana. He is also known as Master of Tavarnelle or Master of Ovid. It is assumed by some art historian that he was a pupil or collaborator of Filippino Lippi. MASTER of the Cassoni Campana

Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, (1796–1875)

Orpheus Leading Eurydice from the Underworld, c. 1861

Oil on canvas

Height: 112.3 cm (44.2 ″); Width: 137.1 cm (53.9 ″)

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston 

Soon he began to doubt that she was there, suspecting that Hades had deceived him. 

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (July 16, 1796 – February 22, 1875) was the son of a cloth merchant and a milliner. After an education at the Collège de Rouen and two abortive apprenticeships with drapers, he was given the financial freedom at the age of 26 to devote himself to painting.

 In 1825 to 1828 Corot made the trip to Italy considered so essential to the formation of a landscape artist, spending time in Rome and the Campagna, before travelling to Naples. In 1827 he sent his first paintings to the Paris Salon.

Corot returned to Italy in 1834 and 1843. He also travelled extensively in France, to Normandy, Provence, the Morvan region in Burgundy, to which he returned for many years, and to north-east France in 1871 during the Commune. In 1854 he travelled in Holland and Belgium; he regularly visited Switzerland, and in 1862 he was in London.

During these trips Corot painted in the open air and filled numerous notebooks with drawings. His early oil sketches, such as those painted in Italy, were clearly defined and fresh, using bright colours in fluid strokes. During the winter months he worked in the studio on ambitious mythological and religious landscapes destined for the salon. 

His reputation was established by the 1850s, which was also the period when his style became softer and his colours more restricted. In his late studio landscapes, which were often peopled with bathers, bacchantes and allegorical figures, he employed a small range of colours, often using soft coloured greys and blue-greens, with spots of colour confined to the clothing of the figures.

At the Exposition Universelle of 1855 Corot showed six paintings and won a gold medal. His influence on later 19th-century landscape painting, including the Impressionists, was immense. More on Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

John Roddam Spencer Stanhope, (1829–1908)

Orpheus and Eurydice on the Banks of the Styx, c. 1878

Oil on panel

Height: 100 cm (39.3 ″); Width: 140 cm (55.1 ″)

Private collection

Just as he reached the portals of Hades and daylight, he turned around to gaze on her face, and because Eurydice had not yet crossed the threshold, she vanished back into the Underworld. 

John Roddam Spencer Stanhope (20 January 1829 — 2 August 1908) is an English artist associated with Edward Burne-Jones and George Frederic Watts and often regarded as a second-wave pre-Raphaelite. His work is also studied within the context of Aestheticism and British Symbolism. As a painter, Stanhope worked in oil, watercolor, fresco, and mixed media. His subject matter was mythological, allegorical, biblical, and contemporary. Stanhope was born in Yorkshire, England, and died in Florence, Italy. He was the uncle and teacher of the painter Evelyn De Morgan. More on John Roddam Spencer Stanhope

Christian Gottlieb Kratzenstein-Stub  (1783–1816)

Eurydice vanishes back into the Underworld, c. 1806

Oil on canvas

Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek 

When Orpheus later was killed by the Maenads at the orders of Dionysus, his soul ended up in the Underworld where he was reunited with Eurydice. More on Eurydice

Christian Gottlieb Kratzenstein-Stub was born on August 15 , 1783 in Copenhagen died on July 24, 1816 in Kalundborg, Denmark . He was a painter in the classic romantic style at Pierre-Paul Prud'hon. 

Gustave Moreau, (1826–1898)

Thracian Girl Carrying the Head of Orpheus on His Lyre, c. 1865

Oil on canvas

154 × 100

Musée d'Orsay

Gustave Moreau (6 April 1826 – 18 April 1898) was a French Symbolist painter whose main emphasis was the illustration of biblical and mythological figures. Moreau was born in Paris. His father, Louis Jean Marie Moreau, was an architect, who recognized his talent. His first painting was a Pietà which is now located in the cathedral at Angoulême. He showed A Scene from the Song of Songs and The Death of Darius in the Salon of 1853. In 1853 he contributed Athenians with the Minotaur and Moses Putting Off his Sandals within Sight of the Promised Land to the Great Exhibition.

Moreau became a professor at Paris' École des Beaux-Arts in 1891 and among his many students were fauvist painters Henri Matisse and Georges Rouault. Jules Flandrin, Theodor Pallady and Léon Printemps also studied with Moreau.

During his lifetime, Moreau produced more than 8,000 paintings, watercolors and drawings, many of which are on display in Paris' Musée national Gustave Moreau at 14 rue de la Rochefoucauld (9th arrondissement). The museum is in his former workshop, and began operation in 1903. André Breton famously used to "haunt" the museum and regarded Moreau as a precursor of Surrealism. More on Gustave Moreau

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