Flemish school; 17th century.

Flemish school; 17th century.
"Zeus and Mercury in the house of Philemon and Baucis".
Oil on canvas. Relined.
It presents restorations on the pictorial surface.
Measurements: 65 x 86 cm; 77 x 98 cm (frame).
As usual in Flemish painting, the scene combines several genres such as genre and mythology. In the center of the scene Zeus, with his thunderbolts in his hand, raises his cup that is being served by a character with his back to the spectator. At his side Hermes gestures to an old woman captured with exceptional naturalism. The quality of the painting evident in the painter's technique can also be appreciated in the way the scene is represented, where the details of the still life of the table, the furniture in the background, or the goose not only elevate the quality of the painting, but strategically represent details of the story that the artist wants to narrate. The theme is inspired by Ovid's account of how Zeus and Hermes arrived disguised as ordinary peasants and began to ask the townspeople for a place to sleep that night. When they finally arrived at the simple, rustic home of Baucis and Philemon. Although the couple was poor, their generosity far exceeded that of their wealthy neighbors. After serving the two guests food and wine, Baucis realized that, although he had refilled his guests' beechwood cups many times, the jug was still full. Thanks to his generosity Zeus warned them to leave the city because he was going to destroy it and in honor of them in his hut he built a temple.
Stylistically it presents many aesthetic characteristics of the Flemish school. In this, there is a realistic reaction to the fantasy of the international Gothic, is a painting heavily influenced by the art of sculpture, is a painting with a great iconographic sense that allows us two readings, the symbolic and realistic. There is importance for detail, with a meticulous description of objects, nothing escapes the eye of the painter, refinement is also abandoned, real beings appear without idealistic intention. There is a greater study of light, also veracity of the sense of volume, depth is sought in space, achieving perspective intuitively.