Told by an oracle she shouldn’t marry, she challenges any man to a running race to win her hand in marriage. When Hippomenes succeeds, things go wrong for the couple.
Callet
Normally drawn by 2-4 horses, you can sometimes identify deities by the creatures shown towing their chariot, from black horses to domestic cats.
In the Roman arena, with a runaway slave, sparing the life of Daniel, at the feet of St Jerome and St Rufina, and snoring gently on the rug.
The personification of the west wind, to the Greeks gentle and responsible for bringing the start of the growing season, and the abduction and rape of a nymph who became Flora.
An exotic import until the Romans enlisted her support against the Carthaginians, her chariot is drawn by a lion and lioness – who desecrated an old shrine.
One of the most frequently painted of the classical deities, this is out of all proportion to her tiny role in the pantheon. From Ricci to Waterhouse.
Aglaea (representing splendor), Euphrosyne (mirth), and Thalia (good cheer), who together represent the better aspects of human nature, bit got Burne-Jones into trouble.
Goddess of the harvest, food production, fertility and fecundity, paintings by Millet, Rubens, Elsheimer and others.
References to Botticelli’s Primavera and Poussin by Tiepolo, and in the late 19th century: Flora and the Spring.
The man beats the woman quite unfairly, then on the way home they stop off to make love in a temple. Their misbehaviour is punished. More superb narrative paintings.
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