Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Ino.
The gallery
Ino, Queen of Thebes (Leucothea)
Joseph Rayol, 1687–1690
Rayol's white marble for the Bosquet des Dômes at Versailles shows Ino transformed into the sea-goddess Leucothea, receiving sailors' offerings. Cadmus' daughter who leapt with Melicertes rises here as protectress of those who sail — Theban queen remade as white goddess of the surf.
Odysseus and Ino
Alessandro Allori, c. 1580
Allori paints the Odyssey's sea rescue: Ino-Leucothea offers Odysseus her immortal veil as he struggles in the waves after leaving Calypso. The Theban queen-turned-goddess becomes the hand that saves the nostos.
Athamas Killing the Son of Ino
Gaetano Gandolfi, 1801
Gandolfi's canvas stages the madness Hera sends upon Athamas: he turns on Ino's children as she flees toward the cliff. The painting holds Ino at the instant before the leap that will make her Leucothea — stepmother, victim, and soon a goddess of the sea.
Leucothea Rescuing Ulysses
Edward Mitchell Bannister, 1891
Bannister's American landscape-toned myth shows Leucothea — Ino deified — coming to Odysseus in the storm. The White Goddess of sailors is painted as a presence of rescue rather than court allegory, the Theban leap fulfilled as mercy on the open sea.
Ino and Melicertes
Pierre Granier, c. 1689–1690
Granier's marble group for the demi-lune of Apollo's Basin at Versailles shows Ino with Melicertes at the moment of their sea-change. Mother and child become Leucothea and Palaemon — the Theban flight cast in stone for Louis XIV's gardens.
In play
Leucothea
Ino's afterlife is the white sea-goddess Leucothea — the Theban queen who leaps with Melicertes and rises to save drowning Odysseus.
Ino (Greek mythology)
Ino remains Cadmus' daughter who nursed Dionysus and fled Athamas' madness — stepmother, victim, and finally a goddess of the surf.