Flemish school; 19th century.

Flemish school; 19th century.
"Mercury and Herse."
Oil on panel.
It has a frame of the late nineteenth century.
Measurements. 76 x 117 cm; 103 x 148 cm (frame).
This painting, made following the compositional model of Landscape with Mercury and Herse, a work executed around 1635 by Jan Wildens in collaboration with Frans Francken II, is part of the Flemish tradition of integrating mythological narrative in a landscape of elaborate spatial construction. The subject comes from Ovid's Metamorphoses and narrates the episode in which Mercury, sent by Jupiter, observes Herse on her way to the festival of Minerva, a motif that allowed the artists to combine the classical narrative with a virtuoso display of atmospheric landscaping.
The original painting is preserved in the Prado Museum (Madrid), an institution that houses a fundamental set to understand the evolution of the Flemish landscape of the 17th century. In this context, the collaboration between Wildens, a specialist in natural scenes with a wide and luminous perspective, and Francken II, noted for his refined small-format figures, constitutes a paradigmatic example of the system of shared work typical of the Antwerp workshops.
This work derived from the aforementioned model acquires special relevance for its ability to synthesize two appreciated areas of Flemish art: the topographical and atmospheric rigor of the landscape and the iconographic erudition of classical myth.