Juno

Juno can be found at the Armand Hammer Collection in Los Angeles but is occassionally loaned out to complement Dutch Golden Age or Baroque exhibitions around the world

The actual painting is considered unfinished, which was common during the late part of artist Rembrandt's career. He would begin it aged 52 and completed enough for it to be considered a presentable piece. Some of his creditors requested further work as a way of raising its value at that time, with the artist in constant financial battles later on in his life.

An interesting aspect to this painting, as detailed in Rembrandt's Paintings Revisited - A Complete Survey: A Reprint of A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings VI (Rembrandt Research Project Foundation) is that this was potentially one of a three-part series, alongside Venus and Cupid and Pallas Athene. They have been collectively termed as the classical trinity of goddesses.

Most likely, it was commissioned by Herman Becker who himself collected all manner of art and antiquities. His selection of art prints included an earlier set of three prints, where these three themes were placed together in a similar format. Surely no coincidence? Wenzel Hollar is credited with this earlier series, dated around 1646. At that time Amsterdam was blessed with exceptional local artists as well as strong connections to other art movements all across the world thanks to their maritime strengths.

The Armand Hammer Collection in Los Angeles, USA holds a fine selection of art from a variety of modern and traditional art movements. Impressionists and Post-Impressionists are well represented with the likes of Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin plus also Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, John Singer Sargent and Titian.