Leda
Artist:
Henri Fantin-Latour
(French, 1836 - 1904)
Culture: French
Date: 1899
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
25 x 20 1/8 in. (63.5 x 51.1 cm)
Credit Line: Bequest of Gilbert M. Denman, Jr.
Object number: 2005.1.170
Signed: Signed lower right: Fantin
Provenance: with Galerie Pierre Lintilhac, Vichy, between 1899 and 1918; sold, Sotheby's, New York, February 9, 1999, lot 98; sold, Sotheby's New York, May 1, 2001, lot 32 to Gilbert M. Denman, Jr. (1921-2004), San Antonio; Gilbert M. Denman, Jr., by bequest to San Antonio Museum of Art, 2005
Published References
Mme Fantin-Latour, Catalogue de l'oeuvre complet de Fantin-Latour (Paris: Henri Floury, ed., 1911): p. 186, no. 1739
Label Text
According to the Classical writer Ovid in his Metamorphoses, the Greek God Zeus disguised himself as a swan to ambush and rape Leda, the Queen of Sparta. One of the children born from this assault was Helen,
the beauty whose abduction spurred the Trojan War of Homer’s The Iliad. Beginning in the Renaissance, European artists used the story of Leda to explore erotic subjects. Although Henri Fantin-Latour concentrates on the unaware Leda bathing at the water’s edge, the menacing swan with outstretched wings at right leaves no doubt about the eventual attack.
Henri Fantin-Latour was one of the most well-connected artists in nineteenth-century France. He maintained friendships with traditional, state-approved artists, as well as with more radical practitioners, like the Impressionists. He is best known for large-scale group portraits of his artistic colleagues and decorative floral still-life paintings. The broken brushstrokes in Leda show Fantin-Latour’s response to the stylistic innovations of his colleagues. Meanwhile, the swirling lines of the composition evoke the rhythms of music—appropriate for a devotee of the theatre and opera.
(William Keyse Rudolph, 2018)
the beauty whose abduction spurred the Trojan War of Homer’s The Iliad. Beginning in the Renaissance, European artists used the story of Leda to explore erotic subjects. Although Henri Fantin-Latour concentrates on the unaware Leda bathing at the water’s edge, the menacing swan with outstretched wings at right leaves no doubt about the eventual attack.
Henri Fantin-Latour was one of the most well-connected artists in nineteenth-century France. He maintained friendships with traditional, state-approved artists, as well as with more radical practitioners, like the Impressionists. He is best known for large-scale group portraits of his artistic colleagues and decorative floral still-life paintings. The broken brushstrokes in Leda show Fantin-Latour’s response to the stylistic innovations of his colleagues. Meanwhile, the swirling lines of the composition evoke the rhythms of music—appropriate for a devotee of the theatre and opera.
(William Keyse Rudolph, 2018)
Not on view
In Collection(s)
The San Antonio Museum of Art is in the process of digitizing its permanent collection. This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect SAMA's complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of such records is ongoing.
This resource has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the Human Endeavor.
