Danae And The Golden Rain - After Tintoretto - By Pierre Robert Lucas

Oil on panel of the 1937 Grand Prix de Rome, dated 1942, probably produced during his return from the Villa Medici in Italy after winning his prize. He copies the painting by Tintoretto kept at the Lyon Museum of Fine Arts since 1811, stolen by Napoleonic troops. The subject comes from Greek mythology. To thwart an oracle which predicted to him that he would be killed by his grandson, Acrisios the king of Argos keeps his daughter Danae locked in a room at the top of a brazen tower with windows closed by thick bars. But Zeus managed to infiltrate the room in the form of a golden rain and seduce the beautiful Danae. From their union was born the hero Perseus. Danae, depicted as a greedy prostitute, makes her servant collect all the gold coins that have fallen from the sky. Pierre Robert Lucas was born in Bersac in Dordogne in 1913, his teachers were Huvey and Devambez.