The Rape of Europa

The abduction of Europa by Jupiter in the form of a white bull — one of the most widely painted Ovidian subjects in European art — gave painters license to combine mythological violence with sensuous landscape and female beauty. De La Fosse's undated version, now in the National Trust collections in Britain, engages this subject with the warmth and compositional fluency he had developed across decades of mythological and religious painting. The moment of the myth most often depicted is the initial seduction or the moment of departure, with Europa's companions visible on the receding shore, the bull-Jupiter already swimming toward Crete. British aristocratic collections acquired substantial holdings of French Baroque painting through the Grand Tour and diplomatic channels, and de La Fosse's work found its way into country house collections during the eighteenth century. The subject's eroticism was acceptable within the frame of classical mythology.

De La Fosse's undated canvas suggests a mature period work given the fluency of the figure handling and the warm atmospheric seascape. The composition typically organizes the figures in a diagonal from the bull and Europa in the foreground toward the companions and landscape behind. His Venetian palette serves the marine setting well.