Pyramus And Thisbe – Hendrick Van Balen (1575 – 1632)

Oil on copper. Flemish School, 17th century, attributed to Hendrick I van Balen.
Our delicate composition, painted on copper, Hendrick van Balen's preferred support, depicts an episode from mythology recounted by Ovid (IV – 43/166): Pyramus and Thisbe are two young Babylonians in love, whose parents oppose their marriage. They are therefore forced to meet in secret. One night, they arrange to meet near a spring where a large mulberry tree grows. Thisbe arrives first and, startled by a lioness coming to drink, flees, letting her scarf fly away. The lioness, her mouth still bloody from her last meal, pounces on the fabric and tears it to pieces. When Pyramus arrives at the meeting place, he finds only the blood-stained scarf. Imagining that his beloved had been devoured by a wild beast, and unable to bear the thought of living without her, he struck himself with a fatal sword blow. Thisbe, believing the danger past, returned to the spring where she discovered her lover dead. Overwhelmed with grief, she tore the sword from Pyramus's body and impaled herself on the blade to join him in death (this is the moment our painter chose to depict). From then on, the blackberries, which until then had been white, turned a deep red, like all the blood spilled at the foot of the tree.
The palette used to paint the sky offers the viewer the beauty of summer darkness in shades of blue, pink, and violet, giving the scene, though dramatic, a poetic quality. And the figures of the two protagonists are, as always with van Balen, refined and in sensual poses.

Like a jewel box, the guilloché frame with its inverted profile enhances our cabinet painting.
Dimensions: 28.5 x 18 cm - 44 x 34 cm with frame.

Biography:
Hendrick van Balen (Antwerp 1575 – id. 1632). According to some sources, he trained under Adam van Noort or Maarten de Vos. Having become a master in 1592, Antoon van Dyck and Frans Snyders were among his most illustrious pupils. Between 1593 and 1602, he stayed in Italy, particularly in Venice, where he discovered Palma the Younger, who inspired his female figures and from whom he borrowed his colorful palette. An admirer of Hans Rottenhammer, whom he sometimes imitated, van Balen meticulously painted small figures in a graceful, still Mannerist style. For his richer compositions, he called upon specialists in landscape and animal painting. And it was his neighbor and friend Jan Brueghel the Elder (Velvet Brueghel) who became his favorite landscape painter. The reverse is also true: Brueghel preferred to enlist van Balen's skills to depict large figures or nudes. The two collaborators thus painted some 70 canvases together. This fruitful partnership was the subject of an exhibition at the Musée de Flandre in Cassel, which closed last September.

Bibliography:
- VEZILIER Sandrine, LAMSTER Mark, Sensuality and Voluptuousness: The Female Body in 16th and 17th Century Flemish Painting, Exhibition Catalogue, Musée de Flandre, Cassel (Oct. 2010-Jan. 2011), Silvana Editoriale, 2010
- Brueghel and Van Balen: Artists and Collaborators. Exhibition catalogue presented at the Musée de Flandre in Cassel, from May 17 to September 28, 2025, Snoeck Gent, 2025
- GIBSON, Walter S., Mirror of the Earth: the World Landscape in Sixteenth-Century Flemish Painting, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1989.
- THIERY, Yvonne, Les peintres flamands de paysage au XVIIe siècle: des précurseurs à Rubens, Lefèbvre et Gillet, 1988.
- TAPIE, Alain, WEEMANS, Michel, Fables du paysage flamand, (exh. cat. Lille, Palais des beaux-arts, October 6, 2012-January 14, 2013), Paris, Somogy, 2012.