\n\nRubens was the most successful artist of his day, working for courts across Europe and managing a large, busy studio. Although long thought to be an autograph work by the artist, this grand painting is now considered by many to be a copy of a lost original by Rubens. A drawing by a studio assistant of\n\t\n\tRubens after the same lost painting shows a more convincing rendering of Jupiter’s pose and a freer execution of the eagle’s feathers. Visible areas left\n\n\tunpainted and the somewhat mechanical brushwork further suggest the painting may be a copy, but the milky varnish and extensive overpaint impede a fuller assessment.\n
\n\n\tComparative Image: Willem Panneels (1600–1634), after Peter Paul Rubens, Jupiter and Cupid, 1628–30. Drawing. Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen. Kongelige Kobberstiksamling\n
","remarks":"EUR-CI_02-05_WLA-Day 1 Cataloguing "},{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Handbook Entry","textentryhtml":"\r\nAs master of a large, busy studio working for courts across Europe, Rubens was the most successful artist of his day. This grand mythological composition gives a sense of the scale of some of his works and the division of labor among members of the workshop (Jupiter’s eagle is clearly by a different hand than the figures). In a scene from Apuleius’s second-century prose narrative The Golden Ass, Venus’s son Cupid supplicates the king of the gods to allow him to wed Psyche, a mortal. Closely based on the Raphael studio’s fresco decorations for the loggia of Villa Farnesina in Rome (1518), Rubens’s composition gracefully displays his learning: the torso of Jupiter, for example, suggests the ancient Belvedere torso in the Vatican Museums. Cupid’s wheedling gaze, as he toys with Jupiter’s thunderbolt, slyly alludes to sophisticated court humor. There is a companion painting of Ganymede (Prince Schwarzenberg Collection, Vienna), and it, too, suggests Jupiter’s interest in handsome young pages.\r\nFirst noted in a French private collection, this painting is undocumented. The existence of a second large painting related to Jupiter may suggest there was an abandoned commission for a painting series, or even tapestries dating earlier than Rubens’s first known tapestry commission, of about 1616. ","remarks":null},{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Provenance","textentryhtml":"?Florent d’Argouges, Paris (original commission; by descent to Lanoye family); Lanoye family, Chambourd and Zurich (by early 19th century — undetermined date, ?mid-20th century); Newhouse Galleries, New York (by 1965–68; to Forbes); Malcolm Forbes (1968–78); Forbes Magazine Collection (1978–92; gift to Princeton University Art Museum).
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","remarks":"Migrated from 9.35 12/2013"},{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Gallery Label","textentryhtml":"In this scene from a second-century prose narrative, Venus’s son Cupid supplicates the king of the gods to allow him to wed Psyche, a mortal. Based on decorations in the Villa Farnesina in Rome (1518) by Raphael’s studio, this composition also gracefully displays the painter’s knowledge of antique monuments: the torso of Jupiter suggests the Belvedere torso in the Vatican Museums. The patron of this commission has not yet been identified, but the erudition and humor suggest that it was made for a courtly context.","remarks":"K1-6 Rotation"}],"datebegin":1611,"sortnumber":"1992 14y","published_date":"2026-03-05 09:07:07.597290","objectid":33665,"dimensions":"240.5 x 191.8 cm (94 11/16 x 75 1/2 in.)\r\nframe: 267.7 x 218.8 x 15.9 cm (105 3/8 x 86 1/8 x 6 1/4 in.)","on_view":true}