Bacchus and Ariadne, Gerard de Lairesse, c. 1680

painting, h × w More details

Ovid described the following scene in his Metamorphoses: on the island of Naxos, Bacchus, the god of wine, chances upon the heartbroken and abandoned Ariadne. He takes her as his wife and gives her a crown of seven stars, which he subsequently casts up into the heavens. Lairesse revived Dutch painting with a classicizing style that was inspired by works from Greek and Roman antiquity.