17th Century Follower of Sir Peter Paul Rubens

Dr. Richard Verity;

Thence by descent, until 1992;

Anononymous sale, London, Christie's, 11 March 1993, lot 51 (as After Rubens);

Anonymous sale, London, Phillips, 2 December 1997, lot 148 (as Studio of Rubens);

Where acquired by the present owner.

E. McGrath, B. Schepers, N. Buttner, et al., Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, Part XI, 2: Mythological Subjects: Hercules to Olympus, vol. I, London 2022, p. 412, under cat. no. 84 (as copy nos. 18 and 19).

This work is a seventeenth-century copy of Peter Paul Rubens’ painting, executed circa 1637, in the Gemäldegalerie, Dresden.¹ The panel’s verso bears the brand of the Antwerp panel maker’s guild, suggesting that this work was painted in the mid-seventeenth century and possibly by an artist working in Rubens' Antwerp studio, where he or she may have had access to the master’s original. 

The subject derives from the tale of Jupiter and Io as recounted in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Jupiter falls in love with Io and transforms her into a white heifer in order to hide her from his wife, Juno. Aware of her husband’s deceptions, Juno demands the cow as a gift and places it under the protection of Argus, whom Jupiter sends Mercury to kill. This composition depicts Mercury in the guise of a shepherd, who has lulled the elderly guard to sleep with flute music and prepares to draw his sword and slay him.

¹ Oil on panel, 63 by 87.5 cm; inv. no. 962 C; https://skd-online-collection.skd.museum/Details/Index/399667