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Young Mercury Stealing Cattle from the Herd of Apollo
Also titled De jonge Mercurius steelt runderen van Apollo’s kudde
Girolamo da Santacroce (ca.1480-1556) (Santa Croce, ca. –1556)
1530 - 1550
- Medium
- canvas, oil paint (paint)
- Classification
- painting
- Dimensions
- depth 6.5 cm
- Museum
- Rijksmuseum
- Rights
- Public Domain Mark, as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
About this work
Having been banished from Olympus, Apollo now toils as a cowherd. Engrossed in playing the flute, he is unaware that his half-brother Mercury is busy pilfering his cattle. The little thief has wings on his feet. The lyre, a stringed instrument, hanging from a tree trunk is believed to have been invented by Mercury and served as a medium of exchange for the stolen cattle.
