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| Jules Olitski Ariadne Orange 2002 pastel Phillips Collection, Washington DC |
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| Frank Auerbach Bacchus and Ariadne (after Titian) 1971 oil on panel Tate Gallery |
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| Sir Francis Cook Composition for Bacchus and Ariadne 1950 oil on panel Sir Francis Cook Gallery, Island of Jersey |
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| Giorgio de Chirico Sleeping Ariadne (Design for drop-curtain for Albert Roussel's ballet Bacchus and Ariadne) ca. 1931 tempera on paper Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut |
The prototype for Giorgio de Chirico's Ariadne (above) was the famous antique figure at the Vatican in Rome (below), known variously as the Belvedere Cleopatra or Sleeping Ariadne. The Cleopatra identity prevailed for the first few hundred years after the sculpture's discovery and radical restoration in the early 16th century. Only toward the end of the 18th century did the piece's alternate identity as Sleeping Ariadne become the dominant interpretation. This was also the time when images of the abandoned, helpless, mournful, languishing and often sleeping Ariadne proliferated in every sort of European artwork. This passive, ill-treated woman (eventually redeemed by the adoration of Bacchus/Dionysus) retained her popularity with artists throughout the 19th century, as we shall see in forthcoming posts, but has gradually declined in the estimation of the art public since that time.
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| James Anderson Belvedere Cleopatra or Sleeping Ariadne ca. 1845-55 albumen silver print Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| Joseph Southall Ariadne on Naxos 1925 tempera on linen Birmingham Museums Trust, West Midlands |
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| Bryson Burroughs Consolation of Ariadne 1915 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Francis S. Walker Ariadne Forsaken ca. 1911 color mezzotint British Museum |
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| Herbert James Draper Ariadne deserted by Theseus before 1920 oil on canvas Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, North Yorkshire |
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| Raphaël Drouart Bacchus and Ariadne before 1925 aquatint Cleveland Museum of Art |
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| Kenyon Cox Dionysos and Ariadne (Design for chapter-heading or tailpiece) before 1919 engraving Princeton University Art Museum |
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| Lovis Corinth Theseus and Ariadne 1914 drypoint Cleveland Museum of Art |
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| Hans Schuler Ariadne deserted on the Isle of Naxos 1903 marble Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland |
"Ariadne, the daughter of King Minos, fell in love with Theseus of Athens. According to the Greek myth, she accompanied Theseus when he left Crete, but was later abandoned by him on the island of Naxos. Hans Schuler (1874-1951), a native of Lorraine in present-day France, was raised in Baltimore and attended the School of Art and Design at the Maryland Institute. He received the Rinehart Prize, enabling him to study in Paris. After receiving awards at the Paris Salon, Schuler returned to Baltimore, where he pursued a highly successful career as the city's leading sculptor, and founded the Schuler School of Fine Art."
– curator's notes from Walters Art Museum
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| Henri Fantin-Latour Ariadne 1899 lithograph Art Institute of Chicago |
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| John La Farge Bacchus and Ariadne ca. 1880 drawing Cleveland Museum of Art |
"In the early 1880s, John La Farge worked with a team of artists, including the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, to produce decorations for the home of the American industrialist Cornelius Vanderbilt. La Farge's designs made many allusions to the art of the Italian Renaissance and to the splendid decorations created for the Medici banking family in Florence. In this drawing he used a medium common in Italian drawings – red chalk – in self-conscious emulation of Renaissance practice."
– curator's notes from the Cleveland Museum of Art