Frans Wouters (Lier 1612 – Antwerp 1659), Cimon and Iphigenia

Frans Wouters (Lier 1612 – Antwerp 1659)

Cimon and Iphigenia, circa 1640–1650

Oil on copper, 50,5 x 65 cm

Expertise by Didier Bodart

The canvas depicts the famous mythological episode from Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron (Day V, Novella 1), based on the fable of Cimon and Iphigenia, a subject of extraordinary iconographic popularity in Flemish and European Baroque painting, made famous by the inventions of Peter Paul Rubens and Cornelis de Vos. The subject, linked to the pastoral and Arcadian tradition widespread in Flemish and Dutch painting between the 16th and 17th centuries (see E. Wind, 1933), stands out from the usual repertoire of the Rest of Diana Surprised by the Satyrs for its specific poetic and literary tone.

The composition depicts the climax of the tale: the young Cimon, a rough and uneducated shepherd who happens to come across a shady spring, is dazzled by the sight of the beautiful Iphigenia, sleeping on rich drapes with her maids. The painting illustrates the ennobling power of Love, capable of transforming a rough nature into a gentle and refined soul through the contemplation of beauty.

The work is here definitively attributed to Frans Wouters and chronologically placed in his decade of primeval maturity, between 1640 and 1650. Trained in Antwerp from 1628 under Pieter van Avont and admitted as a master to the Guild of Saint Luke in 1634, Wouters took part the following year in the staging of the Solemn Entry of Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand of Austria, under the direction of Peter Paul Rubens. His career subsequently took him to the courts of Vienna and London—where he worked alongside Anthony van Dyck and was appointed painter to the Prince of Wales—before returning to Antwerp in 1641 to devote himself primarily to mythological and historical compositions set against expansive natural backdrops.

In this painting, the allegorical event is effectively underscored by the presence of two cupids: one in flight, intent on shooting the arrow of love at the young man, and the other on the ground, imposing silence with a gesture of his finger to his lips (signum harpocraticum), protecting the quiet of the sleeping girl. The backdrop to the scene is a classical architecture with a monumental fountain surmounted by a sculpture of a cherub and embellished by the presence of a peacock, an ancient symbol of beauty, luxury, and elegance, which lends the setting an idyllic and aristocratic feel.

From the perspective of style and art-critical historiography, Wouters emerges as one of the most refined and seductive interpreters of the Rubens manner, renowned for his ability to enrich landscapes with "uncommon small figures," as 18th-century reader Jean-Baptiste Descamps aptly described them. This specific copperplate edition ranks among the pinnacle of his output, approaching in quality and atmospheric rendering the Landscape with Nymphs and Satyrs in the National Gallery, London (inv. 1871) and the two canvases depicting stories of Diana in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. It also ranks among his celebrated secular inventions (such as the Callisto from Kroměříž/Olomouc, the Venus and Adonis from Copenhagen, and the Rape of Europa from Gotha). The compositional layout highlights a profound assimilation of Rubens' models – in particular the large canvas of the same subject in Vienna – and fits into a specific circle of derivations and variants of the Antwerp school, among which we recall the etching by Cornelis Schut and the lost prototype attributed to Van Dyck (formerly in the Rotterdamche collection of Josua van Belle in 1730).