Leda and the Swan
1770
Medium
etching on laid paper
Dimensions
plate: 22.2 x 17 cm (8 3/4 x 6 11/16 in.) sheet: 27.6 x 38.2 cm (10 7/8 x 15 1/16 in.)
Classification
Department
CG-E
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund
Accession Number
1999.100.11
Art Historical Context
Salomon Gessner’s 1770 etching *Leda and the Swan* captures a celebrated episode from Greek mythology in which Zeus, disguised as a swan, approaches the Spartan queen Leda. Working in the mid-eighteenth century, Gessner was admired for his delicate pastoral scenes and idyllic landscapes; here he translates that sensibility into a mythological subject, softening the drama of the ancient tale into a graceful, almost lyrical moment. Executed as an etching on laid paper, the print exemplifies the period’s growing interest in reproductive techniques that made art more widely accessible. The fine, ...
About the Artist
Salomon Gessner · 1730–1788
Salomon Gessner was born in Zurich in 1730 into a family of printers and publishers, an upbringing that placed books, images, and ideas at the center of his world from an early age. Though largely self-taught as a visual artist, he received some instruction during a period in Berlin, where he encountered the German Rococo tradition, and his mature work reflects a deep absorption in the pastoral li...