Vinckboons, David (attr.)

Description:

Mecheln 1576 - Amsterdam 1632
77 x 106 cm
Forest landscape with Venus and Adonis. Oil/panel.
Bavarian Private Collection. With an expert report by Dieter Füssl. Entirely embedded in a lush forest landscape, with a clearing in the background, a small, brightly lit pond on the left, with dogs, birds and hares as tiny staffage, David Vinckboons depicts a mythological scene.
While resting under a tree, Venus warns her lover Adonis of the dangers of his passion, the hunt for wild animals. She grabs him firmly by his robe to stop him from the impending boar hunt. We know that the jealous Mars in the form of a boar will kill the beautiful Adonis and the badly wounded man will die in the arms of his lover. But with his return from the realm of the underworld (the realm of Proserpina) to the heavenly realm of Venus, the summer begins. As a representative of the following generation, David Vinckboons primarily created landscapes and genre pieces in the Brueghelian tradition, and his rustic, earthy subjects such as the Nest Robbers, Peasant Fairs and Peasant Weddings are still reminiscent of Pieter Breughel the Elder. The landscapes with biblical and mythological themes are often very similar to those of Alexander Keirincx and especially Gillis II van Coninxloo.