Flemish school; 17th century.

Flemish school; 17th century.
"The Childhood of Chiron".
Oil on copper.
Measurements: 26 x 40 cm; 37 x 51 cm (frame).
The painting represents the birth or the first childhood of Chiron, the centaur, and the reaction of his mother or his wet nurse when discovering his hybrid nature.
The painting, attributable to the Flemish school of the 17th century, develops with remarkable narrative interest a rare mythological scene: the childhood of Chiron, the future wise centaur of the classical tradition. The composition is articulated in a wooded landscape of twilight resonances, conceived with a humid atmosphere and an earthy chromatism characteristic of certain minor Flemish workshops, where the landscape serves as a poetic support rather than as a naturalistic description.
In the left corner opens the domestic architecture, barely sketched, from whose gloom emerges an old woman, surprised or alarmed at the prodigy unfolding outside. In the foreground, a young female figure, probably understood as Phylira, mother of Chiron or a wet nurse, advances with a restrained gesture, holding a small jug in a protective attitude. In front of her, the hybrid infant is presented with an infantile body and serpentine or animal limbs, an iconographic formulation that underlines the monstrous and prodigious condition of the newborn. The child extends his arms towards the woman, which adds an affective and dramatic nuance to the whole.
The landscape, dominated by a large tree with nervous branches outlined against a grayish and slightly lunar sky, opens to the right with a pond or pool of water that softens the scene and creates a space of depth. The vegetation is treated with small brushstrokes, somewhat dry, typical of secondary productions of Flemish workshops dedicated to both religious and mythological themes, where the landscape functions as an expressive framework rather than the protagonist.