A MYTHOLOGICAL TAPESTRY

Description:

Brussels or Antwerp, 1710 - 1730 ca., (Manufactury of Frans van den Hecke ?)
300 x 512 cm
Mercury gives the Bacchus child to the nymphs of Nysa to educate. Woven in wool, silk and metal threads. Texile backing. Damages, reweavings and restorations.
Ferdinand III Mülhens Collection, Cologne
With Kunsthandel Ludwig Bernheimer, Munich, 1961
This particularly high-quality tapestry depicts an episode from Ovid's Metamorphoses (Book III, 314 - 315). The child Bacchus/Dionysus is given to the Nymphs from the Thracian mountain Nysa by the messenger of the gods Mercury for upbringing. Bacchus, who corresponds to the god Dionysus in Greek, was the son of the god Jupiter/Zeus and the mortal Semele, daughter of the Theban king Kadmos. After the death of his mother Selene, Bacchus is carried by his father Jupiter in his thigh. To protect him from the revenge of Jupiter's wife Hera, Bacchus is first taken to Boeotia and then to the nymphs of Nysa.
Ovid's Metamorphoses, dedicated to myths of Greco-Roman origin, was a popular subject of 17th/18th century painting and tapestry art. The figural, antique scenery is depicted in a remarkably rich and detailed park-like landscape, with Baroque palace architecture forming the background. The splendid and meticulously designed border framing with opulent floral ornamentation, exotic parrots and arabesque rocailles is remarkable.