After Mercury had turned Aglauros into stone for her obstruction and festering jealousy of her sister Herse, he flew back up to join Jupiter in the heavens, who instructed him to drive a herd of cattle down to the beach where Europa, a king’s daughter, was out with her maidens. This leads into the final myth in Book 2 of Metamorphoses, which Ovid tells in less than thirty lines of Latin, ending part way through the story of the rape of Europa, although here the poet only tells of her abduction.
This time, Jupiter assumes the appearance of a white bull placed among the herd. Europa falls for this trap, and befriends the white bull. Once she sits astride him, Jupiter edges to the nearby shore, then suddenly whisks her off across the Mediterranean, so ending the book in a cliffhanger.
This abduction of Europa has long been one of the most popular of Ovid’s myths for paintings, and innumerable artists have painted the scene.
In Jacopo Tintoretto’s Jupiter and Europa from 1541-42, a modestly-dressed Europa has just got astride Jupiter’s white bull, and is about to be whisked away.
Titian’s Rape of Europa of 1560-62 is one of his best-known paintings, and can be seen today in two copies, this larger one in Boston, and a smaller version in the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London. These show an unmistakeable Europa on the back of a white bull, which is just starting to bolt out to sea. Europa is not sat astride the bull, but reclines in a manner that anticipates her fate when the pair arrive on Crete.
Over sixty years later, in 1628-29, Rubens made a copy justly as famous as the Titians, in his Rape of Europa, which is now in rather better condition than the originals, and one of the treasures of the Prado in Madrid.
Rembrandt’s The Abduction of Europa (1632) is almost contemporary with Rubens’ copy, and not one of his better-known works. It conforms to the version in Metamorphoses, but loses dramatic effect by placing the bolting bull in a dominant and very Dutch landscape, cluttered with Europa’s carriage, large trees, and a distant port.
Claude Lorrain painted several accounts of this myth. Above is his Coast View with the Abduction of Europa from 1645, and below is Coast Scene with the Rape of Europa from 1667. These feature similar arrangements of the figures, in two quite different coastal settings. The earlier closes the view in with a repoussoir of trees at the left, and the trees and buildings at the right. The later painting is more open, and its castellated tower now behind the distant ships.
Tiepolo’s The Rape of Europa from about 1725, a century after Rembrandt’s, not only dilutes its story in its ornamental figures, but shows an earlier moment, before Europa has even started to make her acquaintance with the white bull. It does, though, introduce a new and valuable device: on the cliff above Europa is a black eagle, signifying Jupiter’s presence.
Surprisingly few painters felt this eagle necessary. François Boucher’s The Rape of Europa (1732-34) is another that does this favour to the viewer, although he seems to have ignored the fact that the bull was white. Boucher’s voluptuously decorative flowers, Cupids, and scantily-clad maidens may be typical of the Rococo, but seem inappropriate to this story.
A few years later, Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre painted his Rape of Europa (1750), which at least advances the story to the point where the bull is accelerating away from the shore. Under the glowering eyes of the eagle, the floral romp of accessory figures is being dispersed in disarray, and, like Boucher, Pierre doesn’t show us the white bull we have come to expect.
In about 1760, Johann Heinrich Tischbein painted The Rape of Europa, in another elaborate floral rendering, but without the eagle.
In 1908, Félix Vallotton broke with convention in his painting of The Rape of Europa. In this clean and simplified account, we look out to sea as the naked Europa clambers onto the back of Jupiter disguised as a brown rather than white bull.
Finally, The Abduction of Europa (1919) is one of Pierre Bonnard’s rare mythological works. This bull is dipping his back as the naked Europa sits on him. In the far distance, coloured red in the setting sun, is their destination. Bonnard’s coast is very Mediterranean, with a deep blue sea and intense colours.
Ovid resumes this story at the start of the third book of his Metamorphoses.