Jupiter and Io

Jupiter and Io, oil painting created by Italian Renaissance artist Correggio about 1530 as part of a series depicting the loves of the Roman god Jupiter as described in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. These painting were commissioned by Federigo Gonzaga II, duke of Mantua, and Jupiter and Io may have been intended as a gift to Holy Roman emperor Charles V.

Jupiter and Io depicts the shy nymph Io, daughter of the river god Inachus, captured in an amorous embrace by Jupiter. The god, in order to pursue his trysts away from the view of his jealous wife, engaged in various disguises, wooing Leda as a swan and Ganymede as an eagle, according to Ovid. Here he wraps himself in a cloud to ravish Io, and his face is just visible shimmering through the clouds, while his hand wrapped in mist caresses her. Correggio departs from his source by showing Io responding rapturously. The artist caught the erotic nature of the scene and the nymph’s ecstatic state with the most delicate touch. The storminess of the cloud that envelops Jupiter is belied by the blue sky visible at the top of the painting, while Io’s creamy skin contrasts with the tree roots and mud in which she sits. In the lower right corner, a stag can be seen taking a drink, serenely ignoring the erotic scene taking place before it.

Jupiter and Io was later sold to the Holy Roman emperor Rudolf II, who took it to Austria. It now hangs next to Correggio’s The Abduction of Ganymede in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.