TitleDanae
Artist
William Sargeant Kendall
(1869 - 1938)
Date1903
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsUnframed: 22 × 27 1/2 in.
Framed: 31 × 36 × 2 1/8 in.
SignedSigned: "Sergeant Kendall/Copyright/1903 [1905?]"
SubmissionNA diploma presentation, October 20, 1905
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY
Object number695-P
Label TextDanae is typical of the artist's work of the early twentieth century in that it depicts an allegorical subject, is a nude study, and is oval in format. Kendall was perhaps thinking of the mythological episode of Zeus visiting Danae in the form of a shower of gold, for her head is thrown back in physical abandon while her long, loose, dark hair cascasdes onto the pioolow. The cropping of the oval frame is somewhat awkward, hwoever, resulting in a relative absence of perspective. In a 1905 letter to the Academy, Kendall called Danae "one of my best things."
