Gazette Drouot logo print

Jacob de Backer Venus and Mars surprised by Vulcan 16th-century...

Price Tax incl.:
7800 EUR

Jacob de Backer Venus and Mars surprised by Vulcan 16th-century Antwerp school, circa 1580 Surroundings of Jacob De Backer (Antwerp, 1545 - 1585) Oil on oak panel, dimensions: h. 49, l. 64 cm Carved and gilded wood frame, late period Framed: h. 64 cm, w. 77 cm The subject of our work is taken from Ovid's Metamorphoses, in which the author tells the story of the love affairs of the Olympian gods. Many interpretations of this story were successful during the Renaissance, illustrated by famous Italian and Nordic painters such as Tintoretto, Wtewael, De Clerk and Goltzius, Paris Bordone and others. Our artist depicts the scene in the intimacy and penumbra of a bedroom, lit by candlelight to dramatize the event. As in a theater, once the curtain is raised, the scene unfolds before the viewer. Venus and Mars on their bed are surprised by the unannounced arrival of Venus' husband, Vulcan, who, armed with a candle, surprises his wife in the company of her lover. Modest, she tries to hide her nudity under the sheets, while Mars, faithful to his status as a lover, prepares to draw his sword and punish the newcomer. At the foot of the bed, an armchair and a table, the beautiful dress with its red velvet corset is laid out when the beautiful goddess has undressed, and Mars' helmet and breastplate are placed on the bed. The jewels are placed on the armchair, along with a mirror. Vulcan appears in the guise of a young man, hastily dressed, as evidenced by an exposed shirt sleeve, and barefoot. The nonchalant-looking goddess, exposing her nakedness, raises her right hand to calm her lover and prevent bloodshed. In the background, two maids talk to each other outside the door, witnesses to a domestic scene and perhaps the ones who alerted the unfortunate husband. The artist chooses to present this scene in the half-light of a bedroom lit only by candlelight, to amaze us with her skilful interplay of light and shadow, her dazzling brushstrokes illuminating certain parts of the scene. The rich, intense color palette, the use of chiaroscuro, the modelling of the naked bodies with their pronounced muscles, delicately sculpted using shades of gray on the young woman's body, more beige-brown on the two men's bodies. The artist adds small details of everyday life to transport the painting from the era of the Olympian gods to the contemporary world, as evidenced by the chamberpot in full view at the foot of the bed. The mirror and jewelry are delicately placed on the armchair. A testimony to a pronounced taste for mythological scenes, imbued with Nordic mannerism and the chiaroscuro of the rising Caravaggesque influence, our painting was originally intended for an astute and refined collector to embellish his interiors or even his private cabinet. Jacob De Backer Antwerp, 1545 - 1585 A highly regarded painter of mythological and religious subjects in his time, and a renowned Italianist in the manner of Floris, he trained in Florence and Rome, where he stayed between 1557 and 1560, and is said to have been a pupil of Antonio Palermo, then Hendrick Van Steenwijk. According to Van Mander, he died at the age of thirty, but no mention is made of his birth and death dates. Most of his works have disappeared. We do know that he painted the Triptych of the Last Judgment for the Church of Our Lady in Antwerp, which still stands above the tomb of the printer Christophe Plantin, who died in 1589. His paintings include Jesus Blessing the Children in the Antwerp museum, Venus, Bacchus and Love in the Perpignan museum, a fine suite of the Deadly Sins in Naples, Capodimonte, Venus and Love in Berlin.

Galerie Nicolas Lenté
2, rue des Saints-Pères
75007 Paris