Landscape with the myth of Mercury and Battos (from Ovid's Metamorphoses), Johann Heinrich Roos (1631 – 1685)

Johann Heinrich Roos (Otterberg 1631 – Frankfurt 1685)
Landscape with the myth of Mercury and Battos (from Ovid's Metamorphoses)

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The work represents the mythological episode, taken from Ovid's Metamorphoses (Ovid, Metamorphoses, II, 676-707), namely when the god Mercury, taking advantage of a moment in which Apollo leaves his herd alone, steals some heifers from him and then hides them in a ravine.
The only witness to the theft is the old Batto, a shepherd in charge of looking after the thoroughbred horses of the rich Neleus, king of Pylos and who, in exchange for a heifer, guarantees the God not to spy, swearing that he will remain as silent as a stone .
Immediately distrusting his words, Mercury decides to test his honesty: he appears before him with a different appearance, asking him if he had seen a herd pass by, and offering him a bull and a heifer in exchange for this information. Batto, who is immediately tempted by this new and more convenient offer, indicates without hesitation where the animals were hidden.
As Ovid well illustrates in his poem 'the Metamorphoses', whoever betrays the trust or benevolence of a God is forced to a bitter fate, and so Battos is transformed by Mercury into a stone, remaining silent for eternity just as he had promised.
The scene represents the moment in which Mercury is offering Batto a heifer, which he points to with his hand, in exchange for his loyalty. The divinity is perfectly recognizable due to his classical attributes, the helmet and the winged shoes and above all the caduceus, the winged staff with two coiled snakes, which he will use to transform the shepherd into a stone.
The figurative and exhibition peculiarities of this valuable painting with a mythological subject trace its authorship back to Johann Heinrich Roos (Otterberg 1631 – Frankfurt 1685), progenitor of a prolific and illustrious dynasty of painters.
A talented 'animalist' who had spent four years in Italy, from 1650 to 1654, appreciating the works of Italian specialists, such as Castiglione and Scorza, and assimilating profitably from Italianizing landscape painters, in particular Peter Mulier known as Tempesta. Nonetheless, Roos remained tied to his original Nordic-Dutch stylistic code, which he used in the depiction of the various animals with a more realistic imprint than his son Philipp Peter, often led to excessive emphasis on the animals depicted.
The horses on the left of the composition, which play a predominant role as they are placed in the foreground, denote a specific and accurate depiction, an indistinguishable sign of the hand of the Roos. The general inventiveness also reflects the clear inspiration from the Lazio landscape, with the glimpse of a village behind it, located at the base of the hill on the right, behind the rocky wall.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
The painting is sold complete with a pleasant frame, accompanied by a certificate of authenticity and descriptive iconographic card.
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