Two horses run wild across a flat, earthy plain against a cloudy sunset. These are Xanthus and Balius, the immortal horses of the Greek hero Achilles. They were the offspring of Zephyrus, the god of the west wind, who may be personified by the winged head which is about to expel a mouthful of air.
Achilles was a central character in Homer’s Iliad, an ancient Greek epic poem about the Trojan War. As an infant he had been dipped in the Styx, a river of the underworld with the power to make people immortal, although one heel was left dry. This made him seemingly invincible, but he was finally killed by an arrow to that vulnerable spot.
The painting was traditionally thought to be by Anthony van Dyck, and it does display the liveliness of his studies of Andalusian horses. But, in 1966, cleaning revealed that it was probably painted at a later date by another artist in the style of the great Flemish master.
Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Gregory Martin, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Flemish School: circa 1600–circa 1900’, London 1986; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.
J. Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters: In Which is Included a Short Biographical Notice of the Artists, with a Copious Description of Their Principal Pictures […], vol. 2, London 1830
C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
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