Jupiter und Thetis

Ingres' subject matter is borrowed from an episode in Homer's Iliad where the sea nymph Thetis begs Jupiter to intervene and guide the fate of her son Achilles, who is embroiled in the Trojan War. Jupiter's pose is closely based on the famous chryselephantine sculpture, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia (Zeus being Jupiter's Greek equivalent), one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was destroyed in antiquity, but the pose is known from coins and small replicas. Ingres had a high regard for the painting, and in a manner it marries the great motifs of his career: the voluptuousness of the female character and the authoritative austerity on the male deity.