Jason swearing Eternal Affection to Medea

Jason swearing Eternal Affection to Medea and The Capture of the Golden Fleece are two of a series of seven illustrations of the story of Jason made by Jean-François de Troy as sketches for cartoons for the Gobelins tapestry works in Paris.

Between 1737 and 1740 de Troy painted a series of seven tapestry cartoons illustrating The Story of Esther. He exhibited them at the Salon of 1742 where they were seen by Philibert Orry, count of Vignory, who wrote to de Troy in Rome, commissioning another series of seven cartoons on a different subject for the king of France. The story of the biblical king Solomon and that of the classical hero Jason were suggested. De Troy wrote to Orry that, convinced he would choose the story of Jason, he had already made a sketch of the largest picture, Jason taming the Bulls, which he promised to send as soon as it could be rolled up for transport. In fact de Troy did not send any sketches until he had finished the whole set, writing that it would be easier for Orry to judge them when seen all together.

The first five of the sketches were: Jason swearing Eternal Affection to Medea; Jason taming the Bulls (Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham); The Combat of Soliders born from Serpent’s teeth (Musée du Petit Palais, Paris); The Capture of the Golden Fleece and Medea making Jason’s father Aeson Young Again (sold at Sotheby’s, New York 25 January 2001). These were all episodes based on Ovid’s Metamorphoses. For his sixth and seventh scenes de Troy chose episodes that do not occur in the Metamorphoses but are recounted in Euripides' tragedy Medea. They occur later in the story, after Jason has abandoned Medea in favour of his new bride Glauce. In the sketch for de Troy’s sixth scene, Glauce’s father Cresus is consumed by the poisoned cloak sent by Medea (Musée du Petit Palais, Paris) and in the seventh, Medea rises in her chariot after killing her two children fathered by Jason (location unknown).

The sketches were finished by 15 February 1743 and the cartoons were completed by the end of August 1746. They arrived in Paris in September 1748 and weaving began at the Gobelins works the following year. No less than eight complete sets of tapestries were woven, including one which was hung in the king’s room and throne room in the palace of Versailles. Another of the tapestry sets is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

The series may have been intended to express the courage of King Louis XV of France. However, the German Romantic writer Goethe viewed the tapestries in a different light. He saw them in 1770, when they were on display in a pavilion overlooking the Rhine that had been erected to welcome Marie Antoinette, who was then on her way to France to marry the dauphin (the future king Louis XVI), who was beheaded during the French Revolution. For Goethe, the tragedy of Jason and Medea was a sinister presage of the future.