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Zeus as an eagle, abducting Ganymede

1500–1510
Not on view
Among Jupiter's many loves was the boy Ganymede, whom the god, in the guise of an eagle, carried off to Olympus to serve as his cupbearer. Palumba's woodcut follows Virgil's description (Aeneid 5.250–57) of a cloak embroidered with a depiction of the Trojan prince's abduction while hunting on Mount Ida. As Virgil writes, as the beautiful youth is born aloft in the eagle's talons, his guardians stretch their hands in vain to Heaven and the barking of his dogs rises to the skies.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Zeus as an eagle, abducting Ganymede
  • Artist: Giovanni Battista Palumba (Italian, active ca. 1500–1520)
  • Date: 1500–1510
  • Medium: Woodcut (appears to be a later impression)
  • Dimensions: Sheet: 14 3/16 × 9 13/16 in. (36 × 25 cm)
  • Classification: Prints
  • Credit Line: Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1925
  • Object Number: 25.2.9
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

More Artwork

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Zeus as an eagle, abducting Ganymede, Giovanni Battista Palumba Italian, Woodcut
Zeus as an eagle, abducting Ganymede
Giovanni Battista Palumba
1500–1510
Saint Jerome extracting a thorn from the lion's paw, Giovanni Battista Palumba Italian, Woodcut
Saint Jerome extracting a thorn from the lion's paw
Giovanni Battista Palumba
1500–1510
A triton family in the sea, with a mother and child seated on the back of a half-man, half-sea monster with a child blowing on a conch shell on his shoulders, Giovanni Battista Palumba Italian, Engraving
A triton family in the sea, with a mother and child seated on the back of a half-man, half-sea monster with a child blowing on a conch shell on his shoulders
Giovanni Battista Palumba
1500–1510
Leda and the Swan set in a landscape, Giovanni Battista Palumba Italian, Engraving, partly hand colored
Leda and the Swan set in a landscape
Giovanni Battista Palumba
Nicoletto da Modena
1500–1510
Diana turning Actaeon into a stag, Giovanni Battista Palumba Italian, Woodcut
Diana turning Actaeon into a stag
Giovanni Battista Palumba
1500–1510

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