Circe and Her Lovers in a Landscape
A pale, nearly nude young woman perches on a rock under a tree surrounded by small animals including dogs, deer, and birds, in this horizontal landscape painting. Her body faces us as, lips parted, she looks away to our left. She is covered only by an olive-green drape over her left thigh, on our right. She cradles what appears to be a tall stone tablet in her left arm and touches the inscribed surface with her right hand. White, buttercup-yellow, and crimson-red flowers crown her long blond hair. Her smooth pink skin stands out against the brown bark of the tree trunk behind her. By her right knee, a small brown doe stands looking at her. Closer to us, a white, wading bird dips its beak into a pool of water in the lower right corner of the painting. A large book of diagrams lies open next to the woman's foot, on the slate-gray ground. A small, white dog crouches next to the book on our right in front of a sleek, brown dog and a buck with antlers, and all face the woman in profile. In the trees above, a white hawk perches near the upper right corner of the canvas, and an owl sits on a branch over the woman’s head. Beyond the woman to our left, a steep bank is topped by wispy trees and shrubs. A sandy path meanders past the bank toward a wooden building in the distance. Delicate trees with rust-red and gold canopies frame the building, while a topaz-blue haze behind it suggests a forest beyond. Full, gray clouds fill the sky overhead above a band of pale light on the horizon.
Colors in this work
Details
- Artist
- Dosso Dossi
- Date
- c. 1525
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- overall: 100.8 × 136.1 cm (39 11/16 × 53 9/16 in.) framed: 129.2 × 164.5 × 10.16 cm (50 7/8 × 64 3/4 × 4 in.)
- Department
- CIS-R
- Holding institution
- National Gallery of Art
- Palette
-
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- Image provider
- national-gallery-of-art
- License
- CC0-1.0
- Credit
- Samuel H. Kress Collection
Art Genome Taxonomy
10 tags
Subject Matter
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Classical Mythology Metadata · 99%
The canonical title explicitly identifies the central figure as Circe, a figure from classical mythology.
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Nude Both · 99%
The image shows a nearly nude female figure, and the canonical description identifies her as a nearly nude young woman.
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Landscapes Both · 99%
A wooded setting with trees, a winding path, distant buildings, sky, and atmospheric depth occupies much of the composition; the museum describes it as a horizontal landscape painting.
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Animals Both · 99%
Deer, dogs, an owl, a hawk, and a wading bird are visibly integrated into the scene, consistent with the canonical description.
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Flora Both · 98%
Trees, shrubs, and flowering plants are prominent, including flowers arranged in the woman’s hair; these elements are also described in the museum metadata.
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Implied Narrative Both · 91%
The central figure interacts with an inscribed tablet, an open book lies nearby, and the title supplies a mythological narrative context.
Visual Qualities
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Dark Colors Visual · 94%
Dark brown tree trunks and dense shadowed woodland dominate much of the right and central background, creating a dark tonal range despite the lighter sky and landscape at left.
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Earth Tones Visual · 93%
Browns, ochers, muted greens, and other naturalistic hues predominate in the trees, ground, animals, and drapery, contrasted with blue sky and atmospheric distance.
Medium and Techniques
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Oil Painting Metadata · 99%
The canonical medium is oil on canvas.
Time Periods
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16th Century Art Metadata · 98%
The museum dates the work to circa 1525, placing it in the sixteenth century.
Source & rights
Dosso Dossi. Circe and Her Lovers in a Landscape. Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington.
High-resolution sources
- IIIF image service ↗ 32,821 × 24,135 · National Gallery Of Art · Available