Jupiter and Antiope

Painted c.1856 and now at the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris, Jupiter and Antiope is an early student work that reflects Manet's engagement with the old master tradition of mythological painting while in Thomas Couture's studio and during his study trips to Italy and Holland. The subject — Jupiter transforming into a satyr to seduce the sleeping Antiope — comes from Ovid's Metamorphoses and had been treated by Titian, Rubens, and Van Dyck among others. Manet's youthful engagement with this tradition shows the classical grounding that underpinned his later subversions of it.

The student work demonstrates competent handling of the figure in the academic tradition — warm flesh tones modelled with conventional chiaroscuro, the sleeping female figure given the soft illumination typical of mythological subjects. The composition shows awareness of earlier treatments of the subject, particularly the reclining Venus tradition. The handling is more blended and conventional than Manet's later direct method.