Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Ianthe.
The gallery
Iphis and Ianthe
Illustrator of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, 17th–18th century
An Ovid plate titled for both brides: Iphis and Cretan Ianthe at the hinge of Metamorphoses IX. The print tradition is where Ianthe survives visually — the promised wife who loves a girl the gods will remake as a husband.
Iphis Transformed into a Young Man
Netherlandish printmaker (Metamorphoses series), c. 17th century
Rijksmuseum RP-P-1886-A-10379: Isis answers Telethusa so that Iphis may wed Ianthe. The plate’s drama is the sex-change that clears the Cretan marriage — Ianthe present as the bride the metamorphosis is for.
Telethusa and Iphis Pray to Isis
Netherlandish printmaker (Metamorphoses series), c. 17th century
Rijksmuseum RP-P-2014-34-55: mother and child before Isis — the prayer that will let Iphis stand beside Ianthe as husband. Part of the same Ovid cycle that carried the Cretan wedding into northern print shops.
Isis and Iphis
Johann Wilhelm Baur, c. 1639–1641
Baur’s Ovid illustration stages Isis transforming Iphis — the miracle that unlocks the marriage to Ianthe of Crete. Baroque line keeps the goddess’s gift as the visual climax of a myth rarely painted outside the Metamorphoses series.