On view
Duane Wilder Gallery
Cupid Supplicating Jupiter,
ca. 1611–15
More Context
Handbook Entry
As master of a large, busy studio working for courts across Europe, Rubens was the most successful artist of his day. This grand mythological composition gives a sense of the scale of some of his works and the division of labor among members of the workshop (Jupiter’s eagle is clearly by a different hand than the figures). In a scene from Apuleius’s second-century prose narrative <em>The Golden Ass</em>, Venus’s son Cupid supplicates the king of the gods to allow him to wed Psyche, a mortal. Closely based on the Raphael studio’s fresco decorations for the loggia of Villa Farnesina in Rome (1518), Rubens’s composition gracefully displays his learning: the torso of Jupiter, for example, suggests the ancient Belvedere torso in the Vatican Museums. Cupid’s wheedling gaze, as he toys with Jupiter’s thunderbolt, slyly alludes to sophisticated court humor. There is a companion painting of Ganymede (Prince Schwarzenberg Collection, Vienna), and it, too, suggests Jupiter’s interest in handsome young pages. First noted in a French private collection, this painting is undocumented. The existence of a second large painting related to Jupiter may suggest there was an abandoned commission for a painting series, or even tapestries dating earlier than Rubens’s first known tapestry commission, of about 1616.
More About This Object
Information
ca. 1611–15
?Florent d’Argouges, Paris (original commission; by descent to Lanoye family); Lanoye family, Chambourd and Zurich (by early 19th century — undetermined date, ?mid-20th century); Newhouse Galleries, New York (by 1965–68; to Forbes); Malcolm Forbes (1968–78); Forbes Magazine Collection (1978–92; gift to Princeton University Art Museum).
- Germain Bazin, Kindlers Malerei Lexikon, (Zürich: Kindler Verlag, 1964-)., Vol. 5: p. 159, 160-162 (illus.)
- Justus Müller Hofstede, "Reviewed work: Rubens drawings by L. Burchard, R.-A. d'Hulst", Master drawings 4, no. 4 (Winter, 1966): p. 435-454. , p. 451, under no. 121
- MIchael Jaffe, "Rubens and Joves eagle", Paragone. Arte 21, no. 245 (1970): p. 19-26., pl. 29, pl. 4 (color), fig. 25
- John Rupert Martin, "Rubens's "Jupiter and Cupid': an exhibition at Princeton", Apollo 94, no. 116 (Oct. 1, 1971): p. 277-279., p. 277-278; p. 279, pl. 1
- Peter Paul Rubens before 1620: October 2-October 31, 1971, The Art Museum, Princeton University, (Princeton, NJ: Art Museum, Princeton University, 1972).
- Martin and Claudia Lazzaro Bruno, "Ruben's 'Cupid Supplicating Jupiter'", in J. R. Martin, ed., Rubens before 1620, (Princeton, NJ: Art Museum, Princeton University, 1972)., p. 3-21
- Nancy Ward Neilson, "'Known to Rubens': A Solution and a Problem" in Essays Presented to Myron P. Gilmore, Vol II: History of Art, History of Music, ed. Sergio Bertelli and Gloria Ramakus (Florence: La Nuova Italia Editrice, 1978), 285-287 + 2 plates (ill. plate 1)
- Allen Rosenbaum and Francis F. Jones, Selections from The Art Museum, Princeton University, (Princeton, NJ: The Art Museum, Princeton University, 1986), p. 83
- MIchael Jaffe, Rubens: catalogo completo, (Milano: Rizzoli, 1989)., p. 180, no. 170
- "Acquisitions of the Art Museum 1992," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 52, no. 1 (1993): p. 36-83., p. 82
- 世界美術館の旅 = Sekai Bijutsukan no Tabi (World Museums), (Tokyo: Shōgakukan, 2002)., New Color Transparencies, three-month rental
- Klaus Albrecht Schroeder and Heinz Widauer, Peter Paul Rubens [exh. cat. Albertina] (Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2004), 222
- Odilia Bonebakker, Joaneath Spicer and David Franklin, Dutch and Flemish drawings from the National Gallery of Canada, (Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 2004)., p. 154, fig. 91; p. 155
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 189 (illus.)
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013), p. 195
