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Notes
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Calvaert was first apprenticed to the landscape painter Christian van den Queborne (b.1515). As other Flemish artists, he then left his home country to continue his training in Italy. Never to return, Calvaert spent most of the rest of his life in Bologna. He built a reputation for highly finished copies of paintings by the Renaissance masters, and in 1575 opened a school for young artists where the method of instruction was based upon close study of 15th-century art and culture, mainly from prints. Calvaert painted mostly religious subjects, Dänae is a rare exception. In his composition for this work, the artist is drawing attention to his knowledge of mythology and to the work of other great Italian artists who have treated this particular mythological subject.
The coat of arms in the right-hand corner of the canvas provides an important clue about the history of the painting. It is evidence that this picture was painted in 1591 for Jacob Arnold, Captain of the Papal Swiss Guards in Bologna, where Calvaert worked. Arnold, like the artist, was keen to be known as a man of learning who was conversant with classical mythology.
Title
Danaë
Date
c.1616
Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
H 109.5 x W 77.6 cm
Accession number
KINCM:2005.4794
Acquisition method
gift from Robert William Eastwick Allars of Chelmsford, Essex, 1939
Work type
Painting
Ferens Art Gallery
Queen Victoria Square, Kingston upon Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire HU1 3RA England
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Danaë Ferens Art Gallery -
The Annunciation The Schorr Collection -
The Agony in the Garden Wellcome Collection -
The Visitation National Trust, Waddesdon Manor -
The Martyrdom of Saint Stephen The Fitzwilliam Museum -
The Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist in a Landscape National Galleries of Scotland: National -
The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine National Trust, Stourhead
