Johann Heiss Memmingen 1640 - 1704 Augsburg

Marseilles, art market, 1981, where bought by the present owner in the early 1980s.

P. Königfeld, Der Maler Johann Heiss, Weißenhorn 2001, p. 308, no. C13, reproduced fig. 88.

Formerly wrongly identified as depicting Hannibal after the Battle of Cannae, the subject, an incident during Alexander's Indian campaign, was correctly identified by Königfeld (see Literature).  Although accounts of Alexander's battle with Poros, and of his dialogue with Indian philosophers, are related by Plutarch and Arrian, the source used by Heiss for this picture is a conflation of two consequent episodes from one of the several versions of the Romance of Alexander the Great by the Pseudo-Calisthenes.  With neither side certain of victory, Alexander and the Indian King Poros agreed to settle the outcome in single combat, the latter confident of victory due to his considerably superior stature.  However, when Poros' cavalry made a riotous commotion, the King turned to see what was the cause, whereupon Alexander drove his sword into the bowels of his adversary.  After sequestering Poros' treasures, Alexander journeyed to the Oxydarkes, who were gymnosophists, who lived under huts and in caves.  They sent their noble philosophers to deliver a letter, seen here in the form of an inscribed white flag, containing a message of peace.  Alexander then asked them a series of questions and was deeply impressed by the thoughtfulness of their answers.