{"id":1727,"title":"Portrait of Mlle. Lange as Danae","medium":"Oil on canvas","classification":"Paintings","dimension":"23 3/4 x 19 1/8 in. (60.33 x 48.58 cm) (sight, oval)\r\n30 3/8 x 25 3/4 x 3 1/8 in. (77.15 x 65.41 x 7.94 cm) (outer frame)","object_name":"Painting","continent":"Europe","country":"France","nationality":"French","dated":"1799","room":"G306","list":"Euro-highlights-pre-1800","role":"Artist","text":"Miss Lange was a talented actress known for her beauty and wealthy lovers. Girodet had painted an earlier portrait of her that she found unflattering. When she refused to pay the agreed-upon price and insisted that the painting be removed from public view at the Paris Salon, the enraged Girodet sought revenge with this second, satirical portrait. Eighteenth-century artists sometimes portrayed people as mythological characters to highlight their virtues. Girodet inverted this convention to defame Miss Lange. Danae was one of the mortals loved by the Greek god Zeus, who transformed himself into a shower of gold and fell upon her. Girodet shows Miss Lange greedily catching the gold coins. All of the painting's details are scathingly symbolic. For example, the turkey wearing a wedding ring represents a man the actress married for his fortune. The cracked mirror denotes her inability to see herself as Girodet saw her—a vain, adulterous, and avaricious woman.","creditline":"The William Hood Dunwoody Fund","accession_number":"69.22","artist":"Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson","life_date":"French, 1767–1824","department":"European Art","rights_type":"Public Domain","image_width":6535,"image_height":7632,"recent":0,"see_also":[],"sort_number":"69    22","image":"valid","public_access":1,"curator_approved":0,"highlights":0,"Cache_Location":"001000\\700\\20\\1727","Primary_RenditionNumber":"mia_6008846.jpg","Rights_Image_Display":"Full","list:euro-highlights-pre-1800":true,"related:audio-stops":[{"title":"Portrait of Mlle. Lange as Danaé","_id":"1727","objectId":"1727","link":"http://audio-tours.s3.amazonaws.com/p712.mp3","number":"712","type":"audio"}],"related:artstories":[{"title":"Portrait of Mlle. Lange as Danae","_id":"1727","objectId":"1727","description":"<p>Portraits aren’t always flattering—especially “poison-pen” paintings like this one. It was intended purely, and ingeniously, to damage Mademoiselle Lange’s reputation. For most Parisians, it confirmed what they already suspected: Miss Anne-Françoise-Élisabeth Lange was a talented actress known as much for her wealthy lovers as her beauty. Girodet painted her portrait, but she found his first effort unflattering and offered just half his asking price. Enraged, Girodet got revenge with this second, satirical version, complete with symbolic details that scathingly hint at her true character.</p>","link":"http://artstories.artsmia.org/#/o/1727","type":"artstory"}],"mtime":"2026-03-13T09:00:09.514Z"}