ZEUS
Zeus (Ζεύς) · Roman Jupiter
Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Zeus.
The Artemision Bronze
Unknown (Zeus or Poseidon), c. 460 BC
Monumental ancient Greek bronze recovered from a shipwreck off Cape Artemision, now in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens. The god strides forward with his arm drawn back to hurl a weapon now lost — a thunderbolt if he is Zeus, a trident if Poseidon — making it one of the finest surviving bronzes of the Severe style.
The Statue of Zeus at Olympia (reconstruction)
Antoine-Chrysostome Quatremère de Quincy, 1815
Plate from Antoine-Chrysostome Quatremère de Quincy's study Le Jupiter olympien, reconstructing the lost gold-and-ivory Statue of Zeus at Olympia. Phidias's colossus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, showed the god enthroned with a figure of Nike in his right hand and a sceptre in his left.
Jupiter and Thetis
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 1811
Oil painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, now in the Musée Granet, Aix-en-Provence. The sea-nymph Thetis caresses the chin of the colossal, enthroned Jupiter as she pleads for the fortunes of her son Achilles, a scene drawn from the first book of the Iliad.
Jupiter and Io
Antonio da Correggio, c. 1530
Oil painting by Antonio da Correggio from his series on the loves of Jupiter, now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. The god, dissolved into a dark cloud from which a face and hand barely emerge, embraces the nymph Io — one of the most sensuous inventions of Renaissance painting.