This set of paintings on the five senses (Sight, Hearing, Smell, Taste, Touch) was one of the most successful collaborations of Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel “the Elder”. Rubens placed his figure [+]
Documentation of payment received by Velázquez in July 1629 for an image of Bacchus painted at the king`s behest informs us of the work`s approximate date and identifies its intended recipient. [+]
In classical mythology, Silenus was the guardian of forests. He was supposed to raise Bacchus when the latter was a child. Rubens depicts him in the customary manner: with goat ears and a scraggly bea [+]
Mercury, the son of Jupiter and Maya, bears his characteristic attributes as the gods´ messenger: a winged hat and shoes, as well as the caduceus, a hazel wand with two serpents wound around it, which [+]
A satyr fills the wineglass of a fat, grotesque Silenus who smiles at another satyr seen from behind. This comic treatment of the classical myth derives from Ribera with whom Fracanzano worked from ar [+]
In a lush, wooded landscape on the banks of a quiet river, a nude woman, sitting on a richly colored red cloak, gestures to two male figures posed beside her. Supporting a glazed jug in her lap, she p [+]
The scene depicts a group of naked young women being surprised by a male who violently thrusts aside the reeds behind which they are concealed, while some cupids retreat in fear. The work illustrates [+]
The subject is drawn from the narration in Jacobo de la Voragine`s 13th-century Golden Legend of Saint Anthony the Abbot`s voyage to the Egyptian desert to visit Saint Paul, the first Christian hermit [+]
A monkey dressed as a sculptor works in his studio, making a statue of a satyr while another helps him and a third, dressed in elegant clothes, watches his work attentively. Other works by the artist [+]
A. E. Pérez Sánchez publicó en 1970 su fotografía y su identificación en los inventarios antiguos de El Escorial (Madrid 1970a). En la actualidad, el formato de la obra aparece alterado en todos sus l [+]
The literary source for the Furies is Ovid´s Metamorphoses (IV, 447-464) and Virgil´s Aeneid (VI, 457-8), which recounts the eternal sufferings in Hades of Tityus, whose liver was devoured by a vultur [+]
This is a traditional scene from the iconography of Bacchus, the Roman god of wine. It depicts his meeting with Ariadne on the island of Naxos. The god rides a chariot pulled by lions, and helps his f [+]
Bacchus, the god of wine, is the figure traditionally associated with Autumn. Accompanied here by a satyr with a wineskin, he leans on a barrel and raises a goblet of wine in a pose inspired by the cl [+]
Fortuny produces a faithful interpretation of Jusepe de Ribera’s painting in the Museo del Prado, though his attention is focused exclusively on capturing the effects of the light on an elderly man’s [+]
A group of peasants dance in agitated frenzy, accompanied by a flutist in a tree. The scene takes place in a landscape that recalls Italy, especially the villa in the background, whose shapes resemble [+]
This scene from Book VI of Ovid´s Metamorphosis, shows the god Jupiter´s seduction of the nymph, Antiope. This very beautiful nymph was seduced by the Lord of Olympus, who took the form of [+]
Diana the huntress is resting with her court of Nymphs in a clearing in the woods when she is attacked by a group of Satyrs. Rubens turned this painting into a virtuoso exercise in composition. In the [+]
The scene depicted in this painting relates to two stories told by the Roman poet Ovid. In Fasti (V, 121-24), he writes about a goat that suckled the infant Jupiter, who lost one of the lofty horns th [+]