Philip Andreevich Maliavin

Hammer Gallery, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Paris, Nouveau Drouot--Salle no. 10, Art Russe, February, 1983

Nouveau Drouot, Art Russe, Paris, 1983, no. 28, illustrated twice (once on the cover)

Danaë has long been a recurrent subject in art history, painted most famously by Titian and Rembrandt. In Greek mythology, Danaë was the daughter of Acrisius, who learned that his daughter's future child would one day kill him. Determined to live, Acrisius locked Danaë in a bronze tower, but his ploy against fate was in vain--she was soon impregnated by Zeus, who had mystically transformed into a shower of gold. She gave birth to a boy, Perseus. Upon discovering his daughter with child, Acrisius cast the two into the sea, but they were rescued. Years later, Perseus fulfilled prophecy by accidentally striking his grandfather with a javelin. In the present composition, Maliavin brilliantly merges two excerpts from the myth. Danaë appears as a voluptuous Russian beauty, reclining upon the sea, as a lobster hovers above and gold coins rain down from the heavens.