Abduction of a Sabine Woman

[2] Around the time it was finished, and before Francesco had it installed at the Loggia dei Lanzi, Vincenzo Borghini suggested the title The Rape of the Sabines,[3] and thus a bronze relief was added to the pedestal to link it with the Roman myth.

[9] His working titles for this statue at various times included Paris and Helen, Pluto and Proserpina and Phineus and Andromeda, although the naming was not a matter he was preoccupied with.

[10] Avery went on to say that Giambologna's "lack of concern with specific subject matter or deep emotional expression...left him free to concentrate on the technical aspect, extending his virtuosity to the limits of the materials with which he worked.

[8] According to the art historian Michael Cole, the title may fit in someway, but is essentially unsatisfactory or perhaps meaningless as it does not convey the artist's real intent.

[8] Borghini himself realised the contextual limitations of his title but, nevertheless wrote that Giambologna "thus depicted the aforementioned Sabine maiden as the young woman who is being lifted up; her abductor represents Talassius.

The three figures' heads are at opposites regardless of view point; in particular the old man seems always turned away from the younger woman, as he realises he has lost her to the aggressor, and thus his facial contortions are probably to be read as from shame.

[15] Giambologna was ambitious and competitive, and hoped to equal a number of his influences, including Michelangelo's 1501-04 David now in the Accademia Gallery, and Baccio Bandinelli's 1525-34 Hercules and Cacus at the Piazza della Signoria; both in Florence.

The statue was widely influential and is thought to have informed works such as The kidnapping of Proserpina by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1621–22), Laocoon by Adriaen de Vries (1623) and Pierre Puget's Perseus and Andromeda (1684), among many others.