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Tom Gurney BSc (Hons) is an art history expert with over 20 years experience
Page Created: 30 August 2026 / Page Updated: November 6, 2026
Email: tomgurney1@gmail.com / Phone: +44 7429 011000

Jupiter and Semele: Introduction

In Gustave Moreau’s Jupiter and Semele, a mortal woman collapses across the lap of a god whose unveiled splendour has destroyed her. Yet the fatal encounter occupies only the radiant centre of a much larger world. A lyre, an eagle, allegorical figures, plants, sphinxes and beings half hidden in darkness extend around and below the throne. Moreau turns a brief mythological catastrophe into a monumental vertical meditation on earthly life, death and spiritual ascent. Its scale makes this imagined order physically immediate as well.

At a Glance

  • ArtistGustave Moreau
  • TitleJupiter and Semele (Jupiter et Sémélé), Cat. 91
  • DateCommissioned in 1889; completed and delivered in 1895
  • MediumOil on canvas
  • DimensionsApproximately 212 × 118 cm
  • CollectionMusée Gustave Moreau, Paris; given by Léopold Goldschmidt in 1903[1]

Gustave Moreau in context

Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. The Exact Painting and Its Commission
  3. How to Look at the Central Revelation
  4. The Myth of a Fatal Request
  5. Moreau’s Departures and Named Allegories
  6. From Lower Darkness to Spiritual Regions
  7. Monumental Scale, Layered Colour and Surface
  8. A Late Synthesis Beside the Museum Project
  9. Why Jupiter and Semele Matters

The Exact Painting and Its Commission

The active object is the Musée Gustave Moreau’s Cat. 91, not Cat. 73, a preparatory drawing or another treatment of the subject. The museum records that the first sketch dates from 1889, when the German banker Léopold Goldschmidt commissioned the painting. Moreau completed and delivered the oil in 1895. Its height is 2.12 metres and its width 1.18 metres, giving the crowded design an emphatically upright field.[1]

Goldschmidt retained the canvas after delivery. He donated it to the museum in 1903, the year the institution opened, and it now dominates the first room of the third-floor studio.[2] This ownership sequence matters. The painting belongs intimately to the house-museum today, but it did not enter the state with the works Moreau left inside his home at his death.

The exact high-resolution image is also identified as Cat. 91 and reproduces the same tall oil now in the Paris museum.[3] Dates such as 1894–95 sometimes accompany reproductions, but the holding institution’s more precise account—commissioned in 1889 and completed in 1895—governs here.[1]

How to Look at the Central Revelation

The following visual description is based on observation of the Cat. 91 reproduction; the names assigned to its many secondary figures come from the museum’s account.[1][3] Begin at the luminous centre. Semele’s pale body lies diagonally across Jupiter, her head thrown back and one arm falling towards the richly constructed seat. Her exposed flesh is the brightest continuous shape in the picture, so the eye finds her before it can sort the surrounding multitude.

Jupiter sits frontally behind her, immense yet almost motionless. Moreau gives him a smooth, beardless face, a dark halo and an elaborately ornamented body. Rays spread behind his head within the throne’s architecture. The effect is less like a natural burst of lightning than a sustained manifestation: the god appears as an image of power that Semele cannot survive.

A large lyre rests beside Jupiter. Its looping outline and strings remain readable amid jewels, cloth and architectural motifs. The instrument is unexpected because it conventionally belongs to Apollo or Orpheus; the museum explains that Moreau used it to make Jupiter a poet god.[1] That choice shifts the revelation away from thunder alone. Divine force is presented through radiance, music and the generative power of imagination as well as destruction.

Below the throne, Jupiter’s eagle opens dark wings across the central axis. The bird creates a strong visual threshold: pale Semele and the enthroned god remain above, while denser, darker beings accumulate beneath. To either side, vegetation climbs through columns, figures and ornaments. Leaves and flowers do not form a separate landscape. They interlace the divine court until architecture, bodies and growing forms seem to occupy one prolific environment.

This first route—Semele, Jupiter, lyre and eagle—gives the eye a stable scaffold. Only then do the smaller presences become distinguishable. The picture rewards alternating distances: from afar, its central light and long vertical structure are clear; close viewing reveals faces, attributes and minute passages that complicate any single reading.

The Myth of a Fatal Request

Semele was the daughter of Harmonia and Cadmus, founder of Thebes, and the mortal lover of Jupiter. According to the narrative summarised by the museum, Jupiter’s jealous wife Juno disguised herself as Beroe, Semele’s elderly nurse. She gained the young woman’s confidence and persuaded her to demand that her lover reveal himself in his divine glory. Juno knew that such a vision would be fatal to a mortal.[1]

Moreau represents the consequence. Semele is struck down, overwhelmed by the transfigured god she had asked to see. The episode contains desire, deception and unequal knowledge: she seeks proof of Jupiter’s identity, but the proof exceeds the limits of her body. Her death is therefore not incidental to the revelation. It exposes the impossible distance between a human lover and divine power.

The wider myth continues through their child. Bacchus, or Dionysus, is removed from Semele’s womb and sewn into Jupiter’s thigh until he can be born. Moreau does not narrate that sequence in a set of episodes. Instead, a small winged being shields its eyes near the throne. The museum notes that this figure has sometimes been identified as Bacchus, but records Moreau’s own description of it as the goat-hoofed spirit of earthly love.[1] That distinction keeps a later interpretation from replacing the painter’s stated identification.

Moreau’s Departures and Named Allegories

The beardless Jupiter is a deliberate break from customary images of the mature, thunder-wielding god. The lyre is another departure. Moreau combines sovereign, poet and visionary in one still figure, then surrounds him with beings that are not required to tell the classical story. His additions transform an episode about Juno’s deception into a much broader allegorical order.[1]

At the base of the throne stand Death and Sorrow. The museum identifies Death by the bloodied sword that has just done its work. Sorrow wears a crown of thorns and carries a lily, joining suffering to an emblem of purity. Moreau understood these two figures as the tragic foundation of human existence.[1] They do not merely repeat what has happened to Semele: they generalise her catastrophe into conditions shared by mortal life.

Pan occupies another level of the assembly. As a divinity associated with the earth, he links the celestial region above to the infernal zone below. Tiny creatures struggle upon his thighs, described by the museum as trying to shed worldly bonds.[1] Nearby, Jupiter’s eagle belongs unmistakably to the god, but its spread black wings also divide the picture’s radiant centre from the lower crowd.

At the bottom is Hecate, identified with Night and marked by a crescent upon her head. Around her gather hybrid inhabitants of Erebus, a realm of shadow whose beings still await light. Two sphinxes guard this obscure company and signify the past and future in the museum’s interpretation.[1] Their riddle-like presence is apt: they frame what cannot yet be clearly known.

These identities make the painting legible without turning it into a substitution cipher. Death, Sorrow, Pan and Hecate have named functions, but colour, scale and position also matter. A visitor need not decode every small body before experiencing the main contrast between Semele’s exposed vulnerability and the dark abundance below. The broader guide to Moreau’s symbolism, mythology and religion offers context for this balance between literary knowledge and visual suggestion.

From Lower Darkness to Spiritual Regions

The museum proposes that the painting’s vertical development should be read as the soul’s path towards increasingly spiritual regions.[1] The lower edge is packed with nocturnal beings, half-seen faces and low, lateral bodies. Above them, the eagle and the throne establish a middle boundary. Jupiter and Semele occupy the most concentrated revelation, while blue space, stars and airborne forms open above the architectural crown.

The movement is not a simple ladder in which every higher figure is better. Semele reaches the god and dies; physical nearness to divinity is dangerous rather than automatically redemptive. Sorrow and Death stand close to the throne, and vegetation passes between levels instead of respecting neat borders. Spiritual ascent is therefore imagined through tension: darkness seeks illumination, but illumination can overwhelm.

The format intensifies this reading. At nearly twice its width in height, the canvas encourages the gaze to climb and descend. Moreau repeats arches, upright columns and rising stems, then interrupts them with Semele’s diagonal body and the eagle’s horizontal wings. Those crossings prevent the vertical scheme from becoming static. The eye repeatedly returns to the mortal body laid across the axis of ascent.

Monumental Scale, Layered Colour and Surface

The dimensions make Jupiter and Semele a bodily encounter. More than two metres high, it exceeds the height of most viewers, while its relatively narrow width concentrates the mass of detail. In a reproduction, the entire work can appear like one intricately patterned object; in the third-floor studio, the scale allows its throne, plants and lower population to confront the visitor as separate zones.[1][2]

On visual inspection, blue-black shadow surrounds intensely local reds, greens, golds and whites. Fine outlines preserve tiny attributes, while clustered touches make jewellery, flowers and carved forms glint against darkness.[3] The Musée Gustave Moreau describes rich painting as an ideal in Moreau’s art and singles out Jupiter and Semele as an example of colour aspiring to the intensity of enamel.[4] Its press kit also compares the dazzling colour to the ceramics of Bernard Palissy.[2] These are useful analogies for brilliance and density, not claims that the canvas is made from enamel or ceramic material.

The only medium in the object record is oil on canvas.[1] Within that medium, the surface produces differences between pale flesh, opaque dark wings, coloured ornaments and blue atmosphere. The accumulation does not erase the design. Semele’s light body, Jupiter’s frontal pose and the throne’s symmetry continue to organise a field filled almost to saturation. Moreau’s wider painting practice helps explain why finish in his art can mean layered elaboration rather than uniform smoothness.

A Late Synthesis Beside the Museum Project

Moreau completed the commission in 1895, a decisive year in his late career. His official biography records both the completion of Jupiter and Semele and the transformation of the family house at 14 rue de La Rochefoucauld for its future use as a museum.[5] Architect Albert Lafon began that conversion in 1895. New, spacious studios replaced the upper floors, and from 1896 Moreau selected, arranged and continued working on objects intended to present the range of his career.[2]

The timing makes Cat. 91 an apt companion to the museum project, even though it belonged to Goldschmidt at the time. It gathers many of Moreau’s persistent concerns: a classical story recast as inward revelation, a disciplined central design, hybrid beings, abundant botanical form, precious colour and a hierarchy that moves from material darkness towards spirit. The museum accordingly treats it as a synthesis and a pictorial testament.[1]

That language should not be converted into the claim that this was literally Moreau’s final painting. He lived until 1898, continued organising and revising works, and returned to The Return of the Argonauts in 1897.[2][6] “Testament” describes the painting’s summative ambition, not the last item in a chronological list. The biography of Gustave Moreau places it within those still-active final years.

Goldschmidt’s 1903 gift brought the privately commissioned canvas into the institution just as it opened. It now stands in a setting Moreau shaped to preserve relationships across his work rather than isolate a few celebrated pictures. That home makes Cat. 91 both an individual commission and a key part of the museum’s larger account of his art.[2]

Why Jupiter and Semele Matters

The painting demonstrates how Moreau could enlarge a single instant until it held an entire metaphysical world. Semele’s death remains the emotional centre, but it is set within cycles of suffering, earthly existence, darkness and possible ascent. The crowd is purposeful: named allegories expand the myth, while unresolved details preserve the mystery Moreau valued.

It also joins apparent opposites. Monumental scale contains miniature-like attention; a rigid throne supports a collapsing body; intense colour emerges from deep shadow; and a fatal divine appearance becomes an image of poetic power. Connections to works such as Galatea show Moreau repeatedly suspending myth at a psychologically charged encounter, but Cat. 91 carries that method into its most architecturally expansive late form.

Researched works directory

This searchable evidence census was assembled from public museum records and a reproducible Wikidata snapshot. It is not a catalogue raisonné, a claim to complete oeuvre coverage, or a substitute for Pierre-Louis Mathieu's printed catalogue, which was not consulted for this directory.

325 artworks

NameDateMedium
Abstract Study1850Painting
Abstract Study1875Painting
Abstract Study1890Painting
Academic Study of a Man1847Painting
Achilles the Centaur Chiron1859Painting
Andromeda1867Painting
AndromedaDate unknownPainting
Angels Following the Magi1860Painting
Angels following the Three Magi1898Painting
Angels Throwing Flowers on the Vatican1850Painting
Aphrodite, 1871Date unknownPainting
Apollo and Daphne1852Painting
Apollo and The Nine Muses1856Painting
Apollo and the Satyrs1850Painting
Apollo Victorious over Python1885Painting
Apollon and Marsyas1858Painting
Ariadne and Theseus1875Painting
Arion1891Painting
Athenians being Delivered to the Minotaur in the Cretan Labyrinth1855Painting
Autumn1885Painting
Bacchanal1850Painting
Bacchus on the Panther -cart.Date unknownPainting
Bathsheba1875Painting
Beheading of John the Baptist1872Painting
Bertrand and Raton1879Painting
Binding of Isaac1850Painting
Birth of Venus1870Painting
Briseis Departure1859Painting
centaurDate unknownPainting
Centaurs1850Painting
Chimera1850Painting
Chimeras1875Painting
Christ and the Two Thieves1870Painting
Christ at Gethsemane1850Painting
Christ at Gethsemane1875Painting
Christ at Lake Tiberias1850Painting
Christ at the Column1850Painting
Christ Blessing Hist Mother1850Painting
Christ Reliever1850Painting
Circe1850Painting
Cleopatra1850Painting
Cleopatra1887Painting
Danaé1858Painting
Darius, Fleeing after the battle of Arbela, Stops, Exhausted, to Drink from a Pond1853Painting
Darius Flight1850Painting
Dead Orpheus1850Painting
Dead Orpheus1890Painting
Dead Poet Carried by a Centaur1890Painting
Death Giving Laurels to the Winner of the Tournament1859Painting
Death of a Young Crusader1870Painting
Death of Moses1850Painting
Death of Sapho1850Painting
Death of Sapho1872Painting
Debauchery1850Painting
Dejanira (Autumn)1872Painting
Delilah1850Painting
Delilah1890Painting
Delilah1896Painting
Descent from the Cross1850Painting
Diana bathing1900Painting
Diomede devoured by his horses1865Painting
Diomedes Devoured by His Horses1865Painting
Diomedes Devoured by His Own Horses1870Painting
Œdipus the Wayfarer1888Painting
Draft for Sapho1850Painting
Eleonora Gonzaga, Duchess of Urbino1858Painting
Endymion1850Painting
Erigone1865Painting
Eve1850Painting
Eve1875Painting
Fairy in a Cave1850Painting
Fairy with Griffins1870Painting
Fairy with Griffins1876Painting
Fée aux griffons1876Drawing
Femme et licorne1890Painting
Francesco Maria della Rovere, Duke of Urbino1858Painting
Françoise de Rimini1850Painting
Galateac. 1880Painting
Galathea1896Painting
GalatheaDate unknownPainting
Ganymede1886Painting
Gardian Angel of the City1850Painting
Genius of Evil1850Painting
Genius of Evil1875Painting
Golgotha1870Painting
Hamlet1850Painting
Hamlet Giving Poison to the King1850Painting
Helen1850Painting
Helen1880Painting
Helen at the Scaean Gate1888Painting
Helen Glorified1893Painting
Helen on the Walls of Troy1850Painting
Helen on the Walls of Troy1875Painting
HeleneDate unknownPainting
Hercule et les oiseaux du lac de StymphaleDate unknownPainting
Hercules and Omphale1856Painting
Hercules and the Ceryneian Hind1871Painting
Hercules and the Daughters of Thespius1850Painting
Hercules and the Lernaean Hydra1875–1876Painting
Hercules and the Nemean Lion1850Painting
Hercules and the Stymphalian Birds1872Painting
Hercules and Thespius Daughters1850Painting
Hercules at Lake Stymphalia1875Painting
Hercules between Vice and Virtue1850Painting
Hesiod and the Muse1870Painting
Hesiod and the Muse1875Painting
Hesiod and the Muse1891Painting
Hesiod and the Muses1860Painting
Hesiod and the Muses1882Painting
Hésiode enfant1860Painting
Horse Rider1854Painting
Horse Rider1870Painting
Horse Rider and Amazon1869Painting
Horse Riders and Horses1854Painting
Indian Women Poets1890Painting
Interior, Draft1850Painting
Jacob and the Angel1876Painting
Jacob and the Angel1878Painting
Jacob et l'Ange1878Painting
Jason1865Painting
Jason et Éros1891Painting
Judith1850Painting
Jupiter and Semele1889–1895Painting
King Canute and His Courtesans1850Painting
King David1878Painting
L'enlèvement d'Europe1872Painting
La FéeDate unknownPainting
La mort de Sapho1872Painting
La mort de Sapho1876Painting
La Villa BorghèseDate unknownPainting
Landscape1850Painting
Landscape, Draft1850Painting
Landscape (Neighborhood of Étampes)1850Painting
Le Bon Samaritain1865Painting
Le Cantique des cantiques1853Painting
Le Christ et Madeleine (Noli me Tangere)1889Painting
Le Grand Pan contemple les Sphères Célestes1897Drawing
Le Poète et la Sirène1893Painting
Le Soir1887Painting
Le Sphinx1886Painting
Leda1846Painting
Leda1850Painting
Leda1870Painting
Les Chimères1884Painting
Les Plaintes du poète1882Painting
Life of Humanity1875Painting
Life of Humanity1886Painting
Life of Humanity: Salvator Mundi1886Painting
Life of Humanity: The Golden Age, Adam - Evening - Sleep1879Painting
Life of Humanity: The Golden Age, Adam - Morning - Prayer1879Painting
Life of Humanity: The Golden Age, Adam - Noon - Extasy1879Painting
Life of Humanity: The Iron Age, Cain - Evening - Death1879Painting
Life of Humanity: The Iron Age, Cain - Morning - Work1879Painting
Life of Humanity: The Iron Age, Cain - Noon - Rest1879Painting
Life of Humanity: The Silver Age, Hesiod and Orpheus, Hesiod - Evening - Tears1879Painting
Life of Humanity: The Silver Age, Hesiod and Orpheus, Hesiod - Morning - Inspiration1879Painting
Life of Humanity: The Silver Age, Hesiod and Orpheus, Orpheus - Noon - Song1879Painting
Love Victorious over Death1850Painting
Lucretia and Tarquin1850Painting
Magdalene on Golgotha1850Painting
Magdalene on Golgotha1875Painting
Magdalene on Golgotha1880Painting
Magnolia1864Painting
Martyrdrom1850Painting
Messalina1850Painting
Messalina1874Painting
Messaline1874Painting
Mort de Sapho1900Painting
Moses Exposed1875Painting
Moses Exposed on the Nile1875Painting
Moses, in Sight of the Promised Land, Takes His Sandals Off1854Painting
Moses Rescued from the Nile1893Painting
Mystic Flower1890Painting
Narcissus1850Painting
Narcissus1885Painting
Narcissus1890Painting
Noces d’Alexandre et de RoxaneDate unknownDrawing
Nude Study1850Painting
Nyx, Night Goddess1880Painting
Oedipus and the Sphinx1864Painting
Orestes1850Painting
Orestes1875Painting
Orestes and the Erinyes1875Painting
Orphés1865Painting
Orpheus1865Painting
Orpheus Head1850Painting
Orpheus on Eurydice's Tomb1890Painting
Pasiphaë1850Painting
Pasiphaë1880Painting
Pasiphaë, Grisaille1850Painting
Pauline Moreau as the Virgin1848Painting
Perseus and Andromeda1870Painting
Persian Poet1875Painting
Petrarch After the Triumph1850Painting
Phaéton1878Painting
Phoebus and Boreas1879Painting
Pietà1867Painting
Pietà1875Painting
Pietà1876Painting
PietàDate unknownPainting
Pittacus the Tyrant in War Costume1883Drawing
Polyphemus1880Painting
Poney1870Painting
Portrait of Gustave Moreau by Himself1850Painting
Portrait of Gustave Moreau by Himself1890Painting
Postman and Horses1854Painting
Prometheus1868Painting
Prometheus1869Painting
Prometheus Thunderstruck1870Painting
Prometheus, Variant1870Painting
Rape of Deianira1850Painting
Rape of Deianira1872Painting
Return of the Argonauts1890Painting
Ruines de Rome : le Colisée vu des jardins de l'Angélicum des dominicains1858Painting
Saint Cecilia and the Angels of Music1850Painting
Saint Francis Kissing a Leper1850Painting
Saint George and the Dragon1889–1890Painting
Saint Jerome1850Painting
Saint Sebastian1850Painting
Saint Sebastian1870Painting
Saint Sebastian and the Angel1876Painting
Saint Sebastian and the Angels1850Painting
Saint Sebastian Succoured1885Painting
Saint Sebastian with Archers1875Painting
Saint-Sébastien et l'ange1876Painting
Saint Sébastien soigné par les saintes femmes1869Painting
Sainte Cecilia1850Painting
Salome1850Painting
Salome1872Painting
Salome1874Painting
Salome at the Prison1873Painting
Salomé au Jardin1878Painting
Salome Dancing1872Painting
Salomé Dancing Before Herod1876Painting
Salome Dancing in front of Herod1876Painting
Salome with the Head of John the Baptist1876Painting
Santa Cecilia (Moreau)Date unknownPainting
Sappho falling into the Abyss1867Painting
Semele1889Painting
Semele, Draft1889Painting
Singing Centaurs1850Painting
Slaves Thrown to the Morays1850Painting
Song of Songs （Cantique des Cantiques）1893Painting
Spanish Conversation1850Painting
Spring1850Painting
St. SebastianDate unknownPainting
Study1850Painting
Study1874Painting
Study1875Painting
Study for Jupiter and Semele1889Painting
Study for Moses Taking Off His Sandals1854Painting
Study for Saint Cecilia1850Painting
Study for Salome1874Painting
Study for The Triumph of Alexander the Great1885Painting
Study from Nature1850Painting
Study of a red ibis1900Painting
Sultan1850Painting
Suzanne et les vieillards1895Painting
swinging girlDate unknownPainting
Tea Rose1850Painting
Temptation1890Painting
Tempting Demon1875Painting
The Angels of Sodome1872Painting
The Apparition1876Drawing
The Argonauts1885Painting
The Bad Rich1850Painting
The calvary1867Painting
The childhood of Sixtus V.1853Painting
The Chimera1867Painting
The chimeraDate unknownPainting
The Chimeras1850Painting
The Crowning with Thorns1846Painting
The Daughters of Thespius1853Painting
The Dead Lyres1897Painting
The Decameron1850Painting
The Disciples in Emmaus1850Painting
The Dream Haunting the Mogul1881Painting
The Entombment1867Painting
The Good Samaritan1850Painting
The Infant Moses1877Painting
The Magi1860Painting
The Martyred Saint Sebastian1869Painting
The Mermaid and the Poet1895Painting
The Muses Leaving Their Father Apollo to Go and Light the World1868Painting
The Parca and the Angel of Death1890Painting
The Parcae1850Painting
The Pieridae1875Painting
The Pieridae1880Painting
The Pietà1867Painting
The Plague in Florence1870Painting
The Poet and the Siren1894Painting
The Prodigal Son1850Painting
The Prodigal Son1890Painting
The Rape of Europe1868Painting
The Rape of Europe1869Painting
The Shulamite1853Painting
The Sirens1850Painting
The Sirens1875Painting
The Sirens1882Painting
The Springs1856Painting
The Suitors1862Painting
The Toilette1887Painting
The Travelling Angels1875Painting
The Travelling Poet1890Painting
The Unicorn1885Painting
The Unicorns1888Painting
The Voices1867Painting
The Wandering Jew1870Painting
The Young Man and Death1856–1865Painting
Tomyris and Cyrus1850Painting
Triumph of Alexander the Great1873Painting
Triumphing Church1870Painting
Tyrtaeus1850Painting
Tyrtaeus Singing While Fighting1860Painting
Un Saint au désert1879Painting
Untitled1866Painting
Venice1850Painting
Venice1885Painting
Venus Rising from the Sea1866Painting
Victim1850Painting
Vue de Florence1858Painting
Walk in a Park1865Painting
Water Fairy1850Painting
Womand and Chimera1875Painting
Young Thracian Woman Holding Orpheus' Head1866Painting

Frequently Asked Questions

What myth does Jupiter and Semele depict?

Juno, jealous of Jupiter’s mortal lover Semele, disguises herself as the woman’s nurse and persuades her to demand that Jupiter reveal his divine glory. The revelation is fatal to Semele. Moreau shows her collapsing across the enthroned god at the moment she is overwhelmed.[1]

When did Gustave Moreau paint Jupiter and Semele?

Léopold Goldschmidt commissioned the work in 1889, the date of Moreau’s first sketch. The artist completed and delivered the canvas in 1895. Goldschmidt then gave it to the Musée Gustave Moreau in 1903.[1]

How large is the painting, and what is it made from?

The museum records an oil on canvas measuring approximately 212 centimetres high by 118 centimetres wide. The medium is oil alone; comparisons with enamel and Palissy ceramics describe its intense colour and ornate effect, not additional materials.[1][2][4]

Why are there so many figures and symbols?

Moreau expanded the fatal revelation into an allegory of mortal and spiritual existence. The museum identifies Death, Sorrow, Pan, Hecate, Jupiter’s eagle and two sphinxes among the surrounding beings. Their positions lead from a dark lower realm towards more spiritual regions above.[1]

Where is Jupiter and Semele now?

It is Cat. 91 in the Musée Gustave Moreau in Paris. The museum’s guide places it in the first room of the third-floor studio, where its tall format and densely populated surface dominate the space.[2]

Discussion

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Context

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References

  1. Musée Gustave Moreau, “Jupiter and Semele [Jupiter et Sémélé].”, accessed 30 August 2026.
  2. Musée Gustave Moreau, English Press Kit 2023, accessed 30 August 2026.
  3. Musée Gustave Moreau via Wikimedia Commons, “Jupiter and Semele by Gustave Moreau.jpg.”, accessed 30 August 2026.
  4. Musée Gustave Moreau, “The Art of Gustave Moreau.”, accessed 30 August 2026.
  5. Musée Gustave Moreau, “Biography of Gustave Moreau.”, accessed 30 August 2026.
  6. Musée Gustave Moreau, “The Studios.”, accessed 30 August 2026.