Metamorphoses at the Rijksmuseum (2026): What the Show Was and Where the Works Are Now

The Louvre's Sleeping Hermaphroditus rarely leaves Paris. In spring 2026 it spent four months in Amsterdam, in the same room as Caravaggio's Narcissus and Rodin's Pygmalion and Galatea. The Rijksmuseum's Metamorphoses gathered 80 works across five centuries, all inspired by the same Roman poem. It closed on 25 May 2026, and this page now records what it was and where the key works went.

• Ran from 6 February to 25 May 2026, made with Rome's Galleria Borghese
• 80+ works by Titian, Caravaggio, Bernini, Rodin, Magritte, Bourgeois and Arcimboldo
• Closed: the loans are back in their home collections in Rome, Paris and Munich

What was the Metamorphoses exhibition at the Rijksmuseum?

Ovid wrote his Metamorphoses around 8 AD: fifteen books of transformation myths that European artists spent the next two thousand years painting. Jupiter turns into a swan, a shower of gold, a mist. Narcissus stares at his reflection. Arachne weaves until the goddess destroys her. The Rijksmuseum, with Rome's Galleria Borghese, traced that inheritance across painting, sculpture, goldsmithing, ceramics, photography and video.

The curators organised it by myth, not period. Titian hung next to Brancusi, and a 16th-century bronze faced a 20th-century photograph. Same stories, different centuries, each one revealing something about the moment that told them.

What the show put side by side

Caravaggio's Narcissus. One of his rare secular works. A young man bent double over his reflection, the canvas split between subject and shadow. Caravaggio wasn't interested in the myth's beauty, only its isolation.

The Sleeping Hermaphroditus, on loan from the Louvre. The figure sleeps face down on a stone mattress. From one angle it reads as androgynous, and the transformation happened as you walked around it. It rarely travels, which was the main reason to go.

Titian's Danaë alongside Correggio's version. Both painted the same myth, Jupiter as a shower of gold, for different patrons decades apart. The comparison was one of the strongest in the show.

The Arcimboldo heads. Three composite portraits, faces assembled from plants, animals or objects. They read as faces from a distance and as inventories up close.

Hubert Gerhardt's Perseus with the Head of Medusa. A life-size bronze for the Duke of Bavaria, shown with its preparatory model for the first time. The model was rougher: you could see the sculptor's decisions before they hardened.

Where to see the key works now

Caravaggio's Narcissus is back at Palazzo Barberini in Rome, a few steps from his Judith Beheading Holofernes. Our Palazzo Barberini guide covers the room.

The Sleeping Hermaphroditus is back at the Louvre. If you're planning that visit, start with our Louvre tickets guide.

The Ovid theme in Rome. The Galleria Borghese ran its own Metamorphoses show until 20 September 2026, built around Bernini's Apollo and Daphne, which lives there permanently. See our Borghese Gallery tickets guide.

The Rijksmuseum itself. Without the exhibition, plan two to three hours for the Night Watch, the Gallery of Honour and the Vermeer rooms.

Frequently asked questions

Is the Metamorphoses exhibition still on at the Rijksmuseum?

No. It ran from 6 February to 25 May 2026, and the loans have gone back to their home collections. Its sister show at Rome's Galleria Borghese, Metamorphoses: Ovid and the Arts, closed on 20 September 2026.

Where can I see the works from Metamorphoses now?

Caravaggio's Narcissus is back at Palazzo Barberini in Rome, and the Sleeping Hermaphroditus is back at the Louvre. The Rijksmuseum's own collection, with The Night Watch and the Vermeers, is on view as usual with the standard ticket.

What was the Metamorphoses exhibition about?

More than 80 works across five centuries, all inspired by Ovid's Metamorphoses and organised by myth rather than period. Titian hung next to Brancusi, and a 16th-century bronze faced a 20th-century photograph. The Rijksmuseum made it with Rome's Galleria Borghese.

If you missed it, the two strongest pieces are back on permanent view in Rome and Paris, and the Borghese is still the place to see how Bernini read the same poem.