
Bacchus and Ariadne
1523 · National Gallery, London
Bacchus leaps from his chariot toward Ariadne while Theseus's ship slips off the horizon, painted for a duke's private chamber in Ferrara.
★ 8.9

Bacchus leaps from his chariot toward Ariadne while Theseus's ship slips off the horizon, painted for a duke's private chamber in Ferrara.

Erasmus rests his hands on a book whose edge is inscribed The Labors of Hercules, his own joke about how much scholarship costs.

Erasmus is caught mid-sentence with the pen still moving. He sent portraits like this across Europe as a kind of intellectual calling card.