Since Corinth had joined the Berlin Secession in 1901, and two years later married Charlotte Berend, his career had not looked back. Although early family and social life had reduced the number of paintings he produced, their quality remained consistently high, and he was living up to his reputation as ‘the painter of flesh’.

Lovis Corinth (1858–1925), The Childhood of Zeus (1905-6), oil on canvas, 120 × 150 cm, Kunsthalle Bremen, Bremen, Germany. Wikimedia Commons.

The Childhood of Zeus (1905-6) shows Zeus, the senior god among the Greek pantheon, as a young boy at its centre. According to various myths, he was the son of the Titans Cronus (not Chronos, personification of time) and Rhea. Cronus swallowed his other children, so to save Zeus from that fate, Rhea gave birth to him in Crete, and handed Cronus a rock disguised as a baby, which he promptly swallowed.

Rhea then…