The Rape of Europa

Zeus, in bull form, has abducted the Phoenician princess Europa. She is falling backwards across his back into the sea. Titian painted this for King Philip II of Spain. In the foreground water, a curved pink fish leaps. Rubens copied the whole painting when he was in Madrid. Velázquez copied it too — the fish reappears in Las Meninas as a painting on the back wall. Sargent copied it in Boston. Titian's fish, in three later masters' hands, across three centuries. Now at Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston @gardnermuseum