The Rape of Europa

The present painting is a reduced copy, in reverse, of Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre's enormous Rape of Europa made to decorate the salon of the artist's friend, celebrated amateur, collector and theoretician, Claude-Henri Watelet, who owned over 20 works by the artist. The original, which measures more than 9 feet wide, was exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1750 and is today in the Dallas Museum of Art. Louis-Simon Lempereur's 1762 engraving of Pierre's composition is probably the source of the present lot.