The Muse Euterpe

Painted in 1872 and held at the Hessian State Museum in Darmstadt, this depiction of Euterpe — the Muse of music and lyric poetry in the ancient Greek pantheon — connects Böcklin's mythological interest to the specific domain of the arts themselves. The Muses, daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, were invoked by ancient poets as the source of creative inspiration, and their representation in Romantic painting carried the additional charge of artistic self-reflection: in painting a Muse, the artist images the source of his own creative capacity. Euterpe's attribute is the aulos (double flute), connecting her visually to Böcklin's other flute-playing mythological figures. The 1872 date places this among the peak years of his mythological output; the Darmstadt museum holds it alongside other works that trace his sustained engagement with the ancient tradition of divine inspiration in the arts.

Böcklin's treatment of Euterpe as a figure likely combines the physical presence and naturalistic flesh-painting characteristic of his mature mythological works with the symbolic attribute of the flute that identifies her iconographically. The setting — whether atmospheric landscape, architectural, or neutral — would contribute to the mood of lyric inspiration.