Jan Gossaert

was one of the great Northern painters of the late Renaissance. Gossaert was born about 1478 and died in 1532. He was also called Jan Mabuse and Jennyn Van Henegouwe. In 1508 he traveled with his patron Phillip of Burgundy to Italy. His mature style became a brilliant synthesis of traditional Flemish tight realism, Italian Renaissance styles, and the innovations of Albrect Dürer. He was one of the first Northern artist to paint large-scale secular nudes as decoration for an Italian-style palace for his humanist master Phillip.

This painting is his last. It depicts Danaë as she is approached by Zeus as a beam of sunlight, just before the god impregnates her with the hero Perseus (Greek myths are like that). The subject was also painted by Titian and Rembrandt, but I am particularly fond of Gossaert’s version.