Room 27

The god Pan pursues the virginal nymph Syrinx, who flails her arms as she teeters on the edge of the river Ladon, a frog escaping out of her path. She is moments from being transformed by river nymphs into reeds, in answer to her prayers to escape her unwanted suitor. Pan would later use these re...

There is a rough grandeur in Berchem’s picture. The oxen are fine animals, well muscled and rich in colour. The man is strong, windswept and sunburnt. His massive arms labour at the primitive plough; his shirt is shabby, but gleams white and clean in the sun. He leans back in a huge effort to sho...

Jan Both was one of a group of Dutch artists that made the long and often dangerous journey across the Alps to Italy, said at the time to be the heart of great painting. He stayed for ten years, becoming a leader in the development of Dutch Italianate landscape showing hardy peasants against soft...

The sun sinks behind a steep Italian hillside, casting a soft, gold light over a meandering river in the valley below. But the chill of evening is perhaps settling in. Huddled in his coat, his hat well down over his ears, a man rides his mule side-saddle.Behind them, a peasant drives two oxen dow...

Breenbergh shows us an Old Testament story taking place in an imaginary Egypt, with luxuriant European foliage under a grey Northern sky and exquisitely detailed portrayals of antiquities: obelisks, a column, a pyramid and a stela (a carved commemorative slab of stone). Not all these antique obje...

In the Metamorphoses, a poem by the Roman writer Ovid, Callisto was one of the virginal companions of the goddess Diana. She was raped by Jupiter, ruler of the gods, and became pregnant. One day, while out hunting, Diana and her companions decided to bathe in a stream. Callisto was forced to undr...

Jan Brueghel seems to have squeezed a whole world into his tiny picture. A crowd waits patiently for a turn to come closer to the little child on his mother’s knee. The baby is bare, to show us that he’s a real human baby, but the silvery arrow of light tells us something more.The old man kneelin...

A young man kneels on a river bank, struggling to pull a large, wriggling fish out of the water. Behind him an angel points to the fish, and is clearly instructing him what to do with it. This is the story of Tobias and the Angel as told in the apocryphal Book of Tobit. Following the angel’s dire...

Saint George, a Christian knight, saved a city which was being terrorised by a dragon. Here he charges the beast, who crouches on a grisly collection of bloody bones. The princess, who was to be its next meal, makes a hasty escape on the left.Although ostensibly a history painting, it is the land...

In the shade of a rocky cliff, a woman and a child wade in the shallow water of a ford. She looks down at the little boy as he takes a pee in the river. Images of small nude boys relieving themselves were unremarkable in the seventeenth century, although the boys were usually two or three years o...

On the orders of the pope, Saint Lawrence, a deacon of the early Christian Church, distributed church property to the poor in Rome. When the Roman authorities discovered what he was doing, they ordered him to hand over the treasures to the city. He refused, and when pressed to give up his Christi...

The story of Saint Paul’s shipwreck on the island of Malta is described in Acts (28: 1–6), and Adam Elsheimer has taken advantage of the biblical description to portray a night scene: ‘And the barbarous people shewed us no little kindness: for they kindled a fire, and received us every one, becau...

This scene comes from the apocryphal Book of Tobit. Old and blind, Tobit had sent his son Tobias on a long journey to collect a debt on his behalf. Here, Tobias drags an enormous fish across the ground. He is watched closely by the Archangel Raphael, who had instructed the boy to catch a fish, th...

Eleven finely dressed men inspect and discuss the contents of a large room packed with works of art, astronomical instruments and antiques. Their distinctive features suggest that these might be portraits of known artists, connoisseurs, collectors and art dealers – the ‘cognoscenti’ of the painti...

The holy family are resting from their travels in this small pastoral scene. The Virgin Mary sits on a rock, absorbed in nursing the Christ Child; a bundle and pitcher lie on the ground beside her. Saint Joseph leans on the rocky ground beyond, looking up at a small cloud above the Virgin’s head,...

This idyllic Italian garden with its elegant figures, classical sculptures and tall, slender Mediterranean trees is a product of Frederick de Moucheron’s imagination. As far as we know he never visited Italy, but the picture is probably based on drawings and sketches by artists who had. De Mouche...

For those living in Utrecht in the 1630s, this painting must have seemed like a window onto an exotic world. A crowd of naked women pose elegantly while they talk and bathe in a river. Behind them loom the overgrown tower and arches of a Roman ruin, while the bright morning sky glows behind the f...

There’s something magical about this enchanting picture, in its unearthly, misty colours, deep shadows and strange beasts. The musician fixing us with an enquiring eye is Orpheus. His story comes from one of the legends told by the Roman poet Ovid in his book Metamorphoses.Orpheus' skill was so g...

At the steps of a church, hungry people are being fed. At the centre stands a beggar making direct eye contact with the viewer. Painted in Rome, the work belongs to a series depicting the Seven Works of Mercy, the guiding principle for compassionate deeds inspired by the teachings of Christ, as o...

This painting belongs to a series depicting the Seven Works of Mercy that Sweerts painted during his stay in Rome. The central figure is a bald pilgrim poised to drink from a bowl. Sweerts shows the fundamental Christian charitable act of quenching the thirst of others, set amidst the vibrant bac...