Lot 1253 D α

We would like to thank Dr. Petra Tiegel-Hertfelder, Bonn, for the attribution of this painting to the workshop of Johann Heinrich Tischbein the Elder. She believes one of the artist's nephews was the executor, most likely Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein (1751-1829), who trained in his uncle's workshop. Johann Heinrich Wilhelm then traveled via Hamburg and the Netherlands to Italy, where he temporarily headed the Naples Academy and where his famous depiction of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in the Campagna was created (now at the Städel Museum in Frankfurt).
This mythological narrative painting depicts one of the numerous love affairs of Zeus, the father of the gods. In the foreground, the river god Asopus sits with his daughter Aegina, leaning on a vessel representing the source of a river. At the left edge of the picture, Cupid peeks out from behind rocks and bushes, clutching the neck of an eagle, which struggles to escape. The eagle is Zeus, who is attempting to approach Aegina in the guise of a bird and abduct her. However, she is not yet alone, and he must exercise patience. Ultimately, however, Zeus will succeed and bring Aegina to an island in the Saronic Gulf, which was later named after her.