Andrea Schiavone, Jupiter seducing Callisto

This is one of three mythological scenes illustrating the story of Callisto as told in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Ovid’s poetry was a popular source among artists of stories from Greek and Roman antiquity.

While resting in a leafy grove, the nymph Callisto believed she heard the goddess Diana greeting her. But it was Jupiter in disguise. Here Callisto seems to realise her mistake. As Jupiter caresses Callisto’s cheek, she places her right hand protectively on her thigh and her knees bend in a curtsy or a faint.

The delicate brushstrokes in the fluttering draperies look almost like they've been drawn in chalk or pastels, and lend a decorative beauty to this otherwise disturbing scene. Colour, movement and pattern here are reminiscent of a butterfly taking flight. Very fine threads of gold are painted on Jupiter’s cloak and in the clouds. Scraps of gold leaf were laid over the soft underpaint of parts of the foliage and then glazed with oil paint, making the gold resemble sunlight glimmering among the leaves. There is a fingerprint in the red lake paint of Jupiter’s cloak, which may be where Schiavone wiped away the excess paint with his fingers.

This little painting, about 18 cm square, was made to decorate the end of a wooden chest, known in Italian as a cassone. It is painted on canvas and would probably have been glued to a thin wooden panel. Cassoni were important pieces of furniture used for storing clothes and household linens and would be given to a bride by her parents during her wedding, then taken with her to her marital home. These chests are frequently painted with the coats of arms of the two families joined by the marriage, or decorated with religious scenes or cautionary legends about love. They were often placed at the foot of the couple’s bed.

In the long painting for the front of the cassone (Musée Picardie, Amiens), Callisto’s fellow nymphs reveal her pregnancy to a furious Diana, goddess of chastity. Arcas Hunting, painted for the other end of the chest, tells the final part of the story. We see Callisto’s son by Jupiter, Arcas, hunting with his bow. When Diana discovered that Callisto was pregnant, she turned her into a bear. Schiavone has painted a bear hiding beneath the trees, although it is not easy to make out as the copper green pigment of the leaves has darkened. Not realising that the bear is his mother, Arcas shoots her dead.

Perhaps the choice of subject was to warn the new bride who owned this cassone of the terrible consequences of being seduced and to remind her always to be faithful to her husband.