FROM THE CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART’S CATALOG
In the late 1520s Michelangelo made a painting depicting Leda and the swan, a mythological story in which Zeus assumes the form of a swan to seduce the mortal woman Leda, producing two children with her. Michelangelo’s version was undeniably more erotic and sensuous than most previous treatments of the subject, as well as more famous. Although the original was lost, several copies of the composition were made from a cartoon (full-scale drawing) that was taken to France by one of Michelangelo’s pupils in the 1530s. This drawing by Adolphe Yvon suggests that Michelangelo’s distinctive sensual rendering of the subject persisted into the 1800s.
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Pierre-Auguste Renoir — Reclining Nude (La Source)
Thomas Rowlandson|Michelangelo Buonarroti — Leda and the Swa
Pierre Audouin (French, 1768–1822) — Jupiter and Antiope
Cornelis Bos|Michelangelo Buonarroti — Leda and the Swan
François André Vincent — Diana and Acteon
Gustave Courbet — The Young Bather
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes — Tamaris
Henri Lehmann — Study of a Female Nude
Karl Joseph Aloys Agricola — Psyche Asleep in a Landscape
Antonio Fantuzzi|Francesco Primaticcio — Jupiter and Antiope
Bertauts, P. Cadet, Paris|Célestin Nanteuil — Diane
Wenceslaus Hollar|Francis Barlow — Two Swans