Mercury piping to Argus

Image credit: The National Gallery, London

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A white cow, once a mortal woman named Io, emerges from the shadows at the edge of this picture. Io had caught the eye of the god Jupiter, and he had transformed her in order to protect her from the wrath of his wife Juno. The plan backfired when Juno decided to claim the animal for herself, setting Argus to guard it. To save Io from spending her life as a cow, Jupiter sent Mercury to kill Argus. Here, disguised as a shepherd, Mercury plays a pipe to soothe the guard to sleep – viewers would have known that he was about to bring his sword down on Argus' neck.

This is one of the earliest works Loth made in Venice, where he arrived in 1656, but it shows the influence of his time in Rome in 1653. While there he where would have seen the pictures of the early seventeenth-century painter Caravaggio, who developed this style of painting using extreme contrasts of light and darkness.

The National Gallery, London

London

Title

Mercury piping to Argus

Date

1655-60

Medium

Oil on canvas

Measurements

H 116.9 x W 99.7 cm

Accession number

NG3571

Acquisition method

Presented by A.G.H. Ward, through The Art Fund, 1920

Work type

Painting

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The National Gallery, London

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