The Sculpture Museum - Catalog - Page 48
Examples of Gianfrancesco Susini’s variant versions mentioned by Baldinucci
are thought to be those in the Liechtenstein Collection (recorded in an inventory
of 1658) and the Grünes Gewölbe, Dresden (bought by Le Plat in Paris in 1715: see
Holzhausen and Kersting 1933).
The rather obscure story behind this sculpture is recounted in detail by
Lemprière in his famous Classical Dictionary (1788):
‘Dirce was a woman whom Lycus king of Thebes married after he had
divorced Antiope. When Antiope became pregnant by Jupiter, Dirce suspected her
husband of infidelity to her bed, and imprisoned Antiope, whom she tormented
with the greatest cruelty. Antiope escaped from her confinement, and brought
forth Amphion and Zethus on mount Cithæron. When these children were
informed of the cruelties to which their mother had been exposed, they besieged
Thebes, put Lycus to death, and tied the cruel Dirce to the tail of a wild bull, which
dragged her over rocks and precipices, and exposed her to the most poignant pains,
till the gods, pitying her fate, changed her into a fountain, in the neighbourhood of
Thebes.’
dr charles avery
related literature
W. Holzhausen and E. Kersting, Prachtgefäße, Geschmeide ... Darin: Verzeichnis der Dresdner
Goldschmiede, Tübingen, 1933
I. Faldi, Galleria Borghese. Le sculture dal secolo XVI al XIX, Rome, 1954, no. 59
C. Avery and A. Radcliffe, Giambologna, Sculptor to the Medici, exh. cat., Arts Council of Great Britain,
London, 1978, nos. 180–81
