Ariadne - Arthur Streeton 1895 oil on wood panel Public Domain Faithfully Digitized @ 4016 x 1381

Public Domain Faithfully Digitized @ 4016 x 1381 It may have spent 70 years being privately enjoyed in a Sydney family home, but this tiny painting packed a big punch. Arthur Streeton’s 1895 oil painting, Ariadne, measures just 12.7cm by 35.4cm and sold to the National Gallery of Australia for $900,000. A work of high quality and rarity, the depiction of the classical Greek ‘Mistress of the Labyrinth’, Ariadne, refers to the legend of Theseus abandoning Ariadne sleeping on the island of Naxos, after which she was discovered and wooed by Dionysus. In it, we see Ariadne standing on the beach, pondering her fate. The classical subject, lightly imposed upon an Australian beach, is a kind of n...View all