Flemish school; c. 1600.

Flemish school; c. 1600.
"The Banquet of the Gods."
Oil on.
Presents faults.
Measurements: 31 x 43 cm; 42 x 54,5 cm (frame).
The image represents the Banquet of the Gods celebrated on the occasion of the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, a fundamental episode of Greek mythology.Thetis, nymph of the sea, and Peleus, mortal hero, were the parents of Achilles, one of the central characters of the Iliad, which already confers to this event a prominent place within the classic mythical imaginary.
The scene alludes to the nuptial feast to which the gods of Olympus were summoned, traditionally presented as a moment of divine harmony and solemn celebration. However, this banquet is remembered, above all, for the conflict that arises when Eris, goddess of discord, not having been invited, bursts into the celebration and throws among the diners the famous Apple of Discord, destined "for the most beautiful". This apparently simple gesture triggers a chain of rivalries between the goddesses Hera, Athena and Aphrodite, which will culminate in the Judgment of Paris and, indirectly, in the outbreak of the Trojan War, one of the great founding stories of the Western epic tradition.
From an artistic point of view, the theme falls within the genre of banquet painting, especially cultivated during the Renaissance and Baroque periods in the Flemish school. These compositions allowed artists to display complex choral scenes, rich in gestures, attitudes and symbolic relationships, while offering a pretext for the representation of the nude, and the exaltation of mythology as a moral and allegorical source.