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Danaë is a circa 1623 oil on canvas painting by the Italian artist Orazio Gentileschi.

The painting is to be auctioned at Sotheby's New York on 28 January 2016. It is the most important Baroque painting to be offered for sale in decades and is expected to realize in excess of US $25,000,000.

Painting
The painting was commissioned in 1621 by Giovanni Antonio Sauli who had invited Gentileschi to Genoa. Gentileschi's painted a number of works for Sauli besides the Danäe, including a Peninent Magdalen and a Lot and his Daughters. The painting draws together the Caravaggesque naturalism that influenced Gentileschi's earlier work with the Tuscan lyricism he later developed.

The subject of the painting is the ancient Greek myth of Danaë, which tells of how Zeus, king of the gods, visited Danaë in a shower of gold, from which union Perseus was born. The myth is regarded as a forerunner of the Christian belief in the Annunciation, the divine conception of Christ.

Orazio's daughter Artemisia Gentileschi also painted the subject.

Provenance

 * Commissioned in 1621 by Giovanni Antonio Sauli, Genoa;
 * By descent and inheritance in the family;
 * Thomas P. Grange, London, by 1975;
 * By whom sold in 1977 to Richard L. Feigen;
 * By whom sold on 2 October 1998 to a family trust, the present consignor.