# The Abduction of Europa [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [REMBRANDT Harmenszoon van Rijn]() - Date: 1601-1650 - Technique: Oil on panel, 65 x 79 cm ## Commentary The Abduction of Europa 1632 Oil on panel, 65 x 79 cm J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles <a href="\#" onClick="w=window.open \('/database/glossary/note03.html', 'newWin', 'scrollbars=yes,status=no,dependent=yes,screenX=0,screenY=0,width=300,height=400'\);w.opener=this;w.focus\(\);return false">Catalogue number:</a> Bredius 464. The young Rembrandt was influenced by his teacher Pieter Lastman. As a history painter Rembrandt concentrated mainly on biblical stories, but, inspired by his teacher, he portrayed in this picture a story from Ovid's Metamorphoses: the abduction of the princess Europa. Among the early works by Rembrandt, two mythological scenes, the Abduction of Europa, and the Diana Bathing, take place on richly wooded riverbanks. Both are scenes of divine intervention on earth. In the first the god Zeus abducts Princess Europa, and in the other the goddess Diana turns the unfortunate hunter Actaeon into a stag who is then devoured by his own dogs. The settings for the compositions are quite similar: a shoreline curves from the right foreground into the left middle ground; above it is an opening into a background that is blocked at the back. The largest elements in the compositions are massive, looming trees. This compositional scheme derives fromformulas that had been worked out by Flemish artists in the preceding decades. It was employed in a <a onclick="return OpenOther\('/html/k/keirinck/woody.html'\)" href="/html/k/keirinck/woody.html">contemporaneous painting</a> by Alexander Keirinckx, who moved in 1628 from Antwerp to Utrecht and is recoreded in Amsterdam in the mid-1630s. ## Related artworks - [A black drummer and commander mounted on mules; riding in profile]() - [A child being taught to walk]() - [A cottage beneath trees]() - [A girl sleeping]() - [A Man Laughing]() - [A man making water]() - [A Peddler Selling Spectacles \(The Allegory of Sight\)]() - [A Polish Nobleman]() - [A Scholar]() - [A two-humped camel]() - [A woman in Zeeland costume, from the back]() - [A woman in Zeeland costume, from the front]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()