Kalliope’s Reviews > The Rape of Europa: The Intriguing History of Titian's Masterpiece > Status Update

Mary Berenson upon visiting ISG'home: But the worst of all is that her great Palace looks to our now enlightened eyes, like a junk shop. There is something horrible in these American collections, in snatching this and that away from its real home and having it on a wall of priceless damask made from somewhere else, above furniture higgledepiggled from other places, streamed with object d'art from other realms.

Berenson to Isabella Stewart after he had broken her leg.My imagination shoved rose leaves, as it were, under the spine of a lady for whom lying fractured was but an occasion the more to foregather with Titian. Seriously, I hope you weren't very bad -- that it was nothing more than the'Europa' could bandage up with a piece of that purple of which you gave me so memorable an account.

Isabella Stewart Gardner to Bernard Berenson: Tell me exactly what you paid for the Holbeins. I have a most singular letter from the owners. I am afraid something is wrong with the transaction... It looks as if it might be a question for the law courts.

.. all changed at the Thoré Burger sale in Paris in December 1892 when they acquired Vermeer's Concert.. this little masterpiece was the most tragic loss from the 1990 burglary at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

The movement of the Rape of Europa had pursued a historical path, passing from Venice to Spain, on to France, before coming to Britain. In each case its movement had followed the economic and political fortunes of he rising nation.

Following the Duke of Wellington's lead (a grateful Sapnish government gave him magnificent paintings for his part in defeating the French in the Peninsula War of 1808-12), a number of collectors had acquired works by Velázquez, Murillo and Goya.

That did not happen quite like that. For this there is Galdós 11th Episode.

After Christina's death in 1689 her collection was bought by Don Livio Odescalchi, nephew of Innocent XI whose hero the Duke of Bracciano sold it on to the Duke of Orléans for 358K Francs.

One of Philip's key supporters during the conflict was the French Ambassador to Spain, Antoine, Fourth Duke of Gramont. Antoine Gramont's grandfather Antoine III, Duke of Gramont whose vain and boastful character was the inspiration for Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac, had also served as French ambassador, arranging the marriage of Louis XIV and Maria Theresa in 1659.

The first illustrated copy of the Metamorphoses, published in Venice in 1497, showed to a wider audience what a rich source of visual imagery his myths possessed.

Achilles Tatius (2nd Century AD) - in his The Adventure of Leucippe and Clitophon - gives an ekphrastic account of the Europa myth - that is, through the description of a painting. Many of its elements appear in Titian's version. Diego Hurtado de Mendoza (Spanish Ambassador to Venice) wound a copy of this work translated by Ludovico Dolce.
To pursue further this....