Cephalus and Procris

Cephalus and Procris by Paolo Veronese, painted around 1580-84 and now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg, depicts one of Ovid's most tragic myths — the hunter Cephalus accidentally kills his jealous wife Procris with the unerring javelin she had given him as a gift, having mistaken her for an animal as she spied on him. The story of jealousy destroying love through its own excessive vigilance was among the most emotionally resonant in the Metamorphoses, and Veronese's late treatment brings his characteristic luminous landscape to what is essentially a tragedy of domestic trust. The Strasbourg Museum's holdings of Italian art reflect the city's complex history as a cultural crossroads between French and German traditions, and the Italian paintings in the collection were acquired through various channels during the city's transitions between national sovereignties. Veronese's late paintings show a shift toward more emotionally weighted subjects alongside his characteristic grandeur.

The warm landscape setting and the luminous flesh of the dying Procris create an atmosphere of tragic beauty, with Veronese's characteristic warm palette lending elegiac tenderness to the mythological narrative.