Jupiter, Mercury, and Virtue
Repository URI
Repository DOI
Change log
Authors
Description
Dossi executed this painting to Alfonso d'Este in Ferrara. The picture represents Jupiter painting the wings of butterflies on a canvas while Mercury (representing artistic inspiration and ingenuity) refuses the Virtue asking for an audience. This unusual subject derives from a literary dialogue that the Renaissance attributed to the Greek satirist Lucian, in fact composed by Leon Battista Alberti in the 1430s.
Keywords
Ingenuity: Ingenium, Ingenuity: Genius, Ingenuity: Ingegno, Ingenuity: Genio, Jupiter, Mercury, Canvas, Rainbow, Butterflies
Is Part Of
Publisher
Wavel Castle, Cracow, (restituted in 2000 by the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna)