The Banquet Of The Gods Flemish Mannerist Master Late 16th Century

"The Banquet of the Gods"
Flemish Mannerist Master
Oil painting on canvas
Late 16th century, early 16th century
Important golden frame
Canvas 116 x 86 Frame 153 x 123
Very good condition
Restored and relined in 1896

The splendid large canvas excellently represents a scene of banquet particularly sumptuous and full of character. It is the banquet of the Gods to celebrate the marriage of Cupid and Psyche. All the most important gods of Olympus take part in it, arranged in order on a horizontal line. The composition is truly spectacular and the spectator's gaze is not focused on a main protagonist but is in constant motion attracted by a succession of details. The characters are described in such a way as to be able to recognize them with their attributes and their classic couplings, in a riot of fruits and flowers scattered throughout. The party appears very balanced, in the most rigid diktats of the 16th century, with an obvious erotic charge. The naked, sharply muscled bodies of the gods contrast with the pale complexions of the goddesses who show themselves ostentatiously bare-breasted. The work is a remarkable work by a Flemish artist inspired by Italian Mannerism, in particular by the frescoes by Raphael at the Farnesina and by Giulio Romano at the Palazzo Te. A very similar canvas, evidently by the same author, is on display in the Dijon Museum in France with attribution to an unknown Flemish painter executed between the late 1500s and early 1600s. The painting was restored at the end of the 19th century by the French painter Prével d'Arlay who dated his intervention on the back of the canvas. The work is really in excellent condition and is enhanced by an important gilded neoclassical style frame perfectly in keeping with the subject of the painting.