Saint Louis Art Museum purchases two paintings by Johann Georg Platzer

ST. LOUIS, Jan. 4, 2021—The Saint Louis Art Museum recently purchased two oil paintings on copper by the Austrian artist Johann Georg Platzer (1704-1761), fulfilling a long-held goal of acquiring exceptional examples of Rococo narrative painting.

The paintings—“Bacchus and Ariadne” and “Bacchus and King Midas”—expand the collection’s geographic representation and add examples of mythological narrative. Platzer is best known for his panels on copper that depict mythological or historical subjects, as well as representations of the nobility at leisure or illustrations of artists at work in their studios.

Platzer learned to paint in a small Austrian village, and most scholars identify the years Platzer spent later in Vienna as his most productive. The leading authority on the artist has dated museum’s paintings to the latter part of Platzer’s Viennese period (1735-39), generally regarded as the pinnacle of his career.

The paintings represent two stories from the influential work the Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid. Book 8 of the Metamorphoses described how Theseus killed the fabled and vicious Minotaur with the aid of the Cretan princess Ariadne. She enabled the hero to navigate a labyrinth, which held the monster. Although Theseus promised to take Ariadne with him if he survived, he instead abandoned her on the island of Naxos. She later was comforted there by Bacchus, the god of wine. The festivity is the scene depicted in one of Platzer’s coppers.

The other composition shows a scene from Ovid’s Book 11, in which the poet described how King Midas freed Bacchus’s foster father, Silenus, who had been taken captive by the Phrygians. In the painting, Midas approaches the god of wine and gestures toward Silenus. Revelers surround Bacchus, enthroned beneath a large grapevine, while a kneeling satyr taps the enormous cask to fill a silver ewer. Wine flows everywhere, and a parade of musicmaking revelers dominates the right side of the composition.

The technical and aesthetic accomplishments throughout both paintings are outstanding, and the works are in near-perfect condition, a testament in part to their copper supports. The paintings will be installed later this year in the galleries dedicated to European art before 1800.

CONTACT: Matthew Hathaway, 314.655.5493, matthew.hathaway@slam.org