Titian’s Danae*
There is some scholarship to suggest that Bishop’s poem “A Remembrance” refers to this painting.** I’ll leave it to the curious reader to track that down on his/her own. that’s why we have The Google.
In support of this idea, Titian was from the neighborhood of Venice, so it has that going for it. And “golden quarries” could, perhaps, refer in some way to Zeus, in the form of a shower of golden coins, visiting her in her seclusion. Further, the line “And I too commerced with that golden cloud” makes some sense in the context of this picture. On the other hand, “slim flanks,” and “slender, taut knees” seem more appropriate to the Boticelli, though that is in the eye of the beholder.
Another vagrant thought is that neither of the pictured ladies have strikingly red hair. Perhaps I was confusing my recollection of VENUS with some generic vision of a pre-Rafealite female, many of whom are red-haired.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Pre-Raphaelite_paintings_of_females
The Berberini Bees riddle, remains unsolved (by me.)
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* The work of art depicted in this image and the reproduction thereof are in the public domain worldwide. The reproduction is part of a collection of reproductions compiled by The Yorck Project. The compilation copyright is held by Zenodot Verlagsgesellschaft mbH and licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License
** Image file at
