This sculpture depicts the Cretan princess Ariadne seated on the big cat in a relaxed pose.

Dannecker began work on this sculpture in 1803. By 1805 the “Ariadne” – at that time still standing in his studio – was already regarded one of his masterpieces. The sculpture expresses the idea of "wildness tamed by beauty", according to the motto Dannecker is said to have devised together with his brother-in-law Heinrich Rapp. In 1810 the statue was sold to the Frankfurt banker Simon Moritz von Bethmann (1768–1826), and in 1816 it was put on display in the so-called Odeon, the first museum in Frankfurt to be open to the public. From 1856 onwards it stood in the specially built “Ariadneum”. Every day, according to Bethmann, there was a “positive pilgrimage” to see the sculptor’s most famous work.

Ariadne, in Greek mythology, daughter of Pasiphae and the Cretan king Minos. She fell in love with the Athenian hero Theseus and, with a thread or glittering jewels, helped him escape the Labyrinth after he slew the Minotaur, a beast half bull and half man that Minos kept in the Labyrinth. Here the legends diverge: she was abandoned by Theseus and hanged herself; or, Theseus carried her to Naxos and left her there to die, and she was rescued by and married the god Dionysus.