Another DiCapriovinci from our extensive collection. Leda was DiCapriovinci's childhood sweetheart. He was devastated when she rejected his offer of marriage, choosing instead to run off with a local swan swain, whom she insisted was a god in disguise and in any case a better fate than being married to a local painter.

At that time interspecies marriages were frowned on by the Church, and the young couple had a difficult time of it for several years. However, after the birth of their twin sons, Huey and Dewey, the marriage was accepted by both their families. (The Swanns had been pressuring their son to marry a local goose who laid golden eggs.) The Swann farm became a popular place, partly because of Mrs. Swann's habit of neglecting to dress in warm weather.

DiCapriovinci, although he never fully recovered from his heartbreak, relented enough to paint this melancholy portrait of the loving family one day, as soon as the temperature was in the mid- to upper eighties. The title alone reveals his true feelings.

 

BACK          NEXT