Minerva Visits the Muses

The painting depicts an episode from Ovid's Metamorphoses: Minerva reaches Mount Helicon to listen to the song of the Muses and to behold the Hippocrene spring, which welled up where Pegasus struck the rock with his hoof. In the foreground, the Muses play music and talk in a wooded slope overlooking a valley, while the goddess approaches from one side, her shield bearing the head of Medusa. That detail refers to the myth of Pegasus's birth from the blood of the Gorgon when Perseus beheaded her; Perseus later gave the head to Athena, who placed it on her shield. Pegasus appears in the background, in the upper right corner. Minerva's presence among the Muses fits her role as patron of the arts. The work is generally understood as a collaboration: the landscape is attributed to Joos de Momper, the figures to Hendrik van Balen, and the flowers to Jan Brueghel the Elder. The hazy background landscape, which gradually blends into the foreground, sets a calm, harmonious tone against the cheerful mood of the mythological figures.

Painter

Jan Brueghel the Elder

Date

1617

Medium

oil paint, panel

Dimensions

140 × 199 cm

Museum

Vlaamse Kunstcollectie

Genre

landscape painting, mythological painting

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