#the golden fleece

Jason and Medea

1. Jason swearing Eternal Affection to Medea by Jean-François Detroy 1742-3

2. Jason and Medea by John William Waterhouse 1907

3. Jason and Medea Charming the Sleepless Dragon by C.G. Battista 

4. Jason Charming the Dragon by Salvator Rosa ca. 1665-1670

5. The Golden Fleece by Herbert James Draper 1904

6. Medea by Eugène Ferdinand Victor Delacroix 1862

7. Jason and Medea by Charles André van Loo 1759

Explanatory notes:

1. Jason cannot win the fleece without Medea’s help, so Hera and Athena persuade Aphrodite to send Eros to Medea, so she falls in love with Jason.

2. Medea is mixing the potion for Jason that will make him invincible for 24 hours, so he can complete the tasks King Aeëtes of Colchis, Medeas father, has set out if he is to win the fleece.

3 + 4 The fleece is guarded by a serpent that never sleeps, so Medea mixes a sleeping powder for him to use on the snake (in some versions she is the one who puts it to sleep). 

5. On the home voyage from Colchis the Argonauts (with Medea) run into more trouble, and Medea sacrifices her brother by throwing him overboard so they can get away.

6 + 7. After the events of The Argonautica Medea and Jason have two sons. But Jason betrays Medea with another woman, and Medea takes revenge by sending the woman a cursed dress that burns her alive, and by murdering her children before finally fleeing in her dragon-pulled chariot. 

Jason with the Golden Fleece (1803)

Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844)

Thorvaldsen’s work was initially executed for the Copenhagen Academy to demonstrate his progress, and the life-size clay version created in 1803 is considered to be the artist’s first great work. A marble version was subsequently commissioned by Thomas Hope, and this version was completed in 1828. Hope’s marble version of Jason was purchased by Thorvaldsens Museum at an auction in England in 1917.

The sculpture expresses the gist of the Ancient Greek myth of Jason recounted by the Alexandrian poet Apollonios of Rhodes, about a hero who travelled on a voyage in search of the Golden Fleece in an attempt to help his father recover his kingdom from King Pelias, Jason’s uncle. The sculpture depicts him proud in the moment where he has managed to get the fleece and now returns home to his kingdom.

It is considered to be Thorvaldsen’s breakthrough work, the statue’s theme stems from a drawing of Jason and the Golden Fleece by Asmus Jacob Carstens but the esthetic of the nude figure is also inspired by the Apollo Belvedere and Doryphoros, both from antiquity. Thorvaldsen’s contemporaries recognised that with this sculpture new life had successfully been given to Antiquity and thus the belief in the free man had been re-established. As such Thorvaldsen’s Jason marks the threshold to the 1800s, when western representative democracies saw the light of day. 

Marble, H: 2.42m - A822

Thorvaldsens Museum, Copenhagen