Statue of Leda with the Swan

Ashley Hough

A beautiful statue in the Palazzo Nuovo depicts the mortal woman Leda leaning against a tree trunk on her right and clutching a swan who is actually the king of the Olympian gods, Zeus, in the form of a swan. The white marble statue is slightly erotic in nature, and shows Leda partially nude protectively holding the majestic swan who is looking up at her lovingly. The magnificent work of art is thought to date back to the second century AD, however it is believed to be a replica of the lost work of the Greek sculptor Timotheos in the Fourth century BC. As the story goes, Zeus appears to the beautiful mortal woman Leda in the form of a swan and proceeds to seduce and impregnate her. That same night, however, Leda also slept with her husband, Tyndareus, the king of Sparta, and as a result, Leda becomes pregnant with two men's children. The mortal woman is said to have lain two eggs from which hatched two sets of twins: Helen (later Helen of Sparta, the beautiful woman who is responsible for the breakout of the Trojan war) and Polydeuces, the children of Zeus, from one egg, and Castor and Clytemnestra, the children of Tyndareus, her husband, from the other. The myth of Zeus and Leda was popular during the Middle Ages thanks to the literary works of Ovid, however during the Renaissance the story became much more popular and works of art depicting a naked Leda with Zeus in the guise of a swan begin to crop up quite frequently, again modeling Timotheos' lost masterpiece.