Lot 07

Frans Francken II. (1581 - 1642) THESEUS, DIONYSUS AND ARIADNE ON THE ISLAND OF NAXOS

After killing the Minotaur in the labyrinth on the island of Crete, Theseus kidnapped Ariadne, the daughter of King Minos, to the island of Naxos. Here, Theseus and Ariadne meet the god Dionysus. They hold a feast and Thysseus leaves Ariadne on the island as the wife of the god Dionysus. Frans Francken treated this popular mythological theme in two other versions. In a painting in a private collection in Madrid, the composition is expanded to include a procession of the god Poseidon and his wife Amphitrite. The collaborator here is the landscape painter Joos de Momper. It is dated before 1630. The second painting, in a private collection in Dusseldorf, is of the same composition, but with the depiction of animals and flowers, which appear in the foreground of our painting, reduced. Frans Francken II also Frans Francken the Younger was a Flemish painter and the most famous member of the great Francken family, an artistic dynasty. His talent was recognized from an early age. He became a very successful artist and ran a large workshop in which many copies of his original compositions were made.

Published:  Harting, U.: Frans Francken Jr. published by LUCA Verlag Freren 1989, pp. 315, 316, 322 item 299, item 56