Landscape with Mercury and Battus and Animals
Dirck van Bergen (Haarlem c.1645 – Haarlem c.1690)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
circa 1675
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
470 x 1511 mm (18 ½ x 59 ½ in)
Order this imageCollection
Ham House, Surrey
NT 1140142
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Landscape with Mercury and Battus and Animals by Dirck van Bergen (Haarlem c.1645 – Haarlem c.1690). c.1675. Battus is seated on a rock, foreground right, his dog resting at his feet. Mercury, near centre, in his winged helmet, gestures towards the cows, as he offers them to Battus; a cow and sheep graze beside him, as do horses, from a tree, background right.
Provenance
Painted for the Duke & Duchess of Lauderdale (Inventory of 29 May 1677: in The White Closet: one of “Three pictures over ye Chimney & doores”); and thence by descent until acquired in 1948 by HM Government when Sir Lyonel, 4th Bt (1854 – 1952) and Sir Cecil Tollemache, 5th Bt (1886 – 1969) presented Ham House to the National Trust, and entrusted to the care of the Victoria & Albert Museum, until 1990, when returned to the care of the National Trust, and to which ownership was transferred in 2002
Makers and roles
Dirck van Bergen (Haarlem c.1645 – Haarlem c.1690), artist