Engravingexpand_more
Gift of Elizabeth, Julie, and Catherine Andrus in memory of John and Marion Andrusexpand_more 2015.93.37
Disguised as a swan (made large, to indicate divinity), the Greek god Zeus sets his lecherous sights on Leda, wife of Sparta’s King Tyndareus. Hidden by the swan’s wings, she welcomes the seduction, caressing the bird’s suggestive neck and, in a very human detail, raising her heels in excitement. Her compressed form, monumental even in this tiny space, is ready to unfold. The union produced the mythical Castor, Pollux, Helen of Troy, and Clytemnestra.
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