Danaë and the Shower of Gold

Danaë, imprisoned by her father King Acrisius after an oracle foretold that her son would kill him, receives the god Jupiter as a shower of gold while Cupid pulls back the dark green curtain — the viewer, like the god, is invited to witness the moment of seduction. The subject, taken from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, was long exploited as a pretext for the erotic female nude, and Orazio Gentileschi makes the most of it: a transparent veil draped across the sleeping Danaë draws the eye rather than shielding her. The picture is a meticulous study of light and surface effects, from the sheen of the gold bedcover to the cool white linen and the deep crimson mattress. Painted in 1621 to 1623 for Giovanni Antonio Sauli’s Genoese palace — part of a series that includes the Getty’s own Lot and His Daughters — it shows the lucid Caravaggesque realism of the painter who was Artemisia Gentileschi’s father. The painting is held in the J. Paul Getty Museum.