Full title | Jason swearing Eternal Affection to Medea |
---|---|
Artist | Jean-François de Troy |
Artist dates | 1679 - 1752 |
Series | Sketches for the Story of Jason |
Date made | 1742-3 |
Medium and support | Oil on canvas |
Dimensions | 56.5 x 52.1 cm |
Acquisition credit | Bequeathed by Francis Falconer Madan, 1962 |
Inventory number | NG6330 |
Location | Not on display |
Collection | Main Collection |
This is the first of the 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. The Gallery owns another sketch from the same series: The Capture of the Golden Fleece.
According to the Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Book VII), Jason was sent to steal the Golden Fleece from Colchis on the Black Sea. He was aided by the sorceress Medea, daughter of the king of Colchis, whom he married but later deserted.
Here we see Jason and Medea deep in the woods at the altar of Hecate, a goddess associated with the moon and witchcraft. He grasps Medea’s hand and asks her to help him to capture the Golden Fleece, promising to marry her in return. Cupid shoots an arrow which is directed by Hymen, god of marriage, towards Jason’s heart. Jason swears to be true and Medea, believing him, gives him magic herbs for his protection.
This is the first of the 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. The cartoon made from this sketch no longer exists. The Gallery owns another sketch from the same series: The Capture of the Golden Fleece.
According to the Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Book VII), Jason was sent to steal the Golden Fleece from Colchis on the Black Sea. The Golden Fleece – the golden fleece of a winged ram – was a symbol of kingship, and Jason needed to capture it to take his rightful place on the throne. He was helped by the sorceress Medea, daughter of the king of Colchis, whom he married but later deserted.
Here we see Jason and Medea deep in the woods at the altar of Hecate, a goddess associated with the moon and witchcraft. He grasps Medea’s hand and begs her to help him capture the Golden Fleece, promising to marry her in return. Cupid shoots an arrow which is directed by Hymen, god of marriage, towards Jason’s heart. Jason swears by the sacred rites of Hecate to be true and Medea, believing him, gives him magic herbs for his protection. Medea is depicted in an exotic costume appropriate for an Eastern princess. She takes a cutting from her basket and places it in Jason’s hand.
The composition is structured upon a series of implied diagonals that follow the lines of Cupid’s arrow and the limbs of the other figures (Hecate and Medea’s right arms and Jason’s right leg) to cross on the magic herb Medea places in Jason’s hand. The receding diagonal lines of the plinth and the rustic fence in the painting’s system of perspective also meet at this point, drawing our eye to the focal point of the painting and emphasising its meaning.
Very few changes were made to the composition between the sketch and the finished tapestry. A grandiose temple colonnade was added behind the statue of Hecate, and her pose was changed slightly to be more reminiscent of Diana, the primary goddess of the moon. De Troy added a dog at bottom left, perhaps a reference to the howling dogs said by some ancient authors to have announced Hecate’s approach, but more likely as a symbol of marital fidelity.
The sketch is loosely painted in dynamic barely blended brushstrokes that emphasise the wildness of the setting and emotional drama of the moment. This rapidly painted oil sketch has a charming feeling of immediacy and spontaneity that is inevitably lost in the larger, highly finished cartoons and tapestries of the series. Six of the sketches, including this one, were in the de Troy sale in Paris in 1764 after his death.
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Jason swearing Eternal Affection to Medea
Sketches for the Story of Jason
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. Based on episodes in the Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses, they were made as sketches for cartoons for the Gobelins tapestry works in Paris.
The illustrations were commissioned on behalf of the king of France in 1742. The sketches were finished by 15 February 1743 and the full-size painted 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 made, 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.
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.


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