Paintings with mythological scenes - Endymion and Selene

The two paintings come from the Archinti collection in Milan and arrive at the Castelvecchio Museum in 1937. These works are part of a group of room paintings, often made in pairs, characterized by a narrative vein that takes its cue from mythological tales. They are linked by the common allegorical meaning of love that comes during sleep and complement each other in the compositional symmetry, in the thematic choice, in the gestures of the figures, as well as in the pictorial and stylistic quality.

The other painting is a nocturnal pastoral, with the goddess Selene in flight wrapped in a blue mantle – with a chromatic effect deliberately antithetical to that of Ariadne – who, according to legend, would have asked Jupiter to fulfill the wish of Endymion, who chose to sleep eternally to keep his youth intact.