page_title: The Abduction of Europa (Rembrandt)
section_title: Jacques Specx and Karel van Mander
hierarchical_section_title: The Abduction of Europa (Rembrandt) / Jacques Specx and Karel van Mander
caption_attribution_description: Portrait of Jacques Specx, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies from 1629 to 1632. Part of the Governors-general series.
context_page_description: Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn's The Abduction of Europa is one of his rare mythological subject paintings. The work is oil on a single oak panel and now located in the J. Paul Getty Museum. The inspiration for the painting is Ovid's Metamorphoses, part of which tells the tale of Zeus's seduction and capture of Europa. The painting shows a coastal scene with Europa being carried away in rough waters by a bull while her friends remain on shore with expressions of horror. Rembrandt combined his knowledge of classical literature with the interests of the patron in order to create this allegorical work. The use of an ancient myth to impart a contemporary thought and his portrayal of the scene using the High Baroque style are two strong aspects of the work.
context_section_description: Jacques Specx, of the Dutch East India Company, commissioned Rembrandt to complete The Abduction of Europa.   Specx had established a trading center in Japan in 1609, served as the Governor of Batavia (former name of Jakarta, the Indonesian capital), and later returned to Holland in 1633.   The painting was in Specx's collection, along with five portraits, also by Rembrandt.
  The subject and its allegorical meaning are described by the Flemish art theorist, Karel van Mander, in Het schilder-boeck (1618). Rembrandt  The book was produced in Amsterdam and included details about many Netherlands painters.  Rembrandt surely would have familiarized himself with van Mander's theories and interpretations of Ovid's myths. 
  Van Mander commented on Europa's abduction, with a European spin to it.
  Ovid's account of the abduction of Europa is found in Book II 833-75 of Metamorphoses.   Europa is a princess of Tyre, who is playing with her court on the coast when a beautiful bull appears.  Europa mounts the bull, which quickly whisks her away into the ocean.  When Europa and her friends notice the bull retreating further into the sea without coming back, the bull transforms into Zeus and carries her to Mount Olympus on the island of Crete.   Rembrandt's painting is set just as Europa is whisked away, as seen by the bull and young lady in the ocean in the painting. 
  	 
  Art historians, like Mariët Westermann and Gary Schwartz interpret the painting as a reference to Specx' career.  The painting includes details from Ovid's story that strengthen the location of the tale as well as tie it to Specx' life.  The African driver and non-European coach in the shadows to the right allude to the exotic Phoenician coast.  There is a port in the background, a reference to the busy port of the Tyre.  Karel van Mander looked for an applicable meaning to the work that constructed a moral concept to the classical literature.  He quoted an unnamed ancient source that stated that the abducted princess was representative of "the human soul, borne by the body through the troubled sea of this world".   Van Mander theorized that the bull, which is Zeus in the classical tale, is really the name of a ship that bore Europa from her eastern home of Tyre to the western continent that adopts her name.
  The literary comments of van Mander are essential to deconstructing the allegorical subject of Europa.  In the story, Zeus whisks Europa away to Crete.  In van Mander's interpretation, she is moved by ship to Crete.  Just as Specx's career was to move treasures of Asia to Europe by ship, so too is Europa moved from her Eastern home to Europe.  Rembrandt's familiarity with the literary and classical nature of the story is evident by the bull as both god and ship, and the harbor installation in the background.  The harbor is representative of the busy trading ports in both Tyre and Europe.  The portrayal of Tyre, though, seems fairly modern with the inclusion of a crane, a tool which did not exist in the first century when Ovid was alive. This detail strengthens the parallel between Tyre and the Dutch ports, as Rembrandt attempts to connect the story to Specx's livelihood.    The relationship also alludes to Europa's impending new destination, where she will give Europe her name.   Most scholars agree that this narrative was chosen specifically by Rembrandt to reinterpret and mirror Specx's career.
caption: Jacques Specx in 1650
exif: {}