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The Banquet of Achelous

The Banquet of Achelous

Object type Painting
Genre Classical Mythology
Date ca. 1615
Dimensions 108 x 163.8 cm
Support Panel
Medium Oil
Collaborators Peter Paul Rubens
Our attribution Jan Brueghel the Elder
Other authorities Ertz 1979, #335
Ertz 1984 as Jan the Younger
Location New York, NY, United States
Collection Metropolitan Museum of Art
Accession numbers inv. #45.141
Tags Feasting, Birds, Parrot, Rubens, Nude, Classical, History, Mythological, Banquet, Flowers, Food, Fruit, Shells
External resources Metropolitan Museum of Art
Held 1941
De Maeyer 1955, pp. 47-48, 118
Speth-Holterhoff 1957, p. 88
Van Puyvelde 1964
Muller Hofstede 1968, p. 225
Alpers 1971, pp. 93-94, 162
Ertz 1979, cat. #335, pp. 415, 613
Liedtke 1984, pp. 194-98
Van Mulders 2000, pp. 113, 118
Los Angeles/Hague 2006, pp. 60-63
Van Mulders in Brussels 2007, p. 109-110, fig. 2
Ertz 2008-10, pp. 1334-35
New York 1919, cat. #21
Detroit 1936, cat #5
New York 1973
New York 1977, cat. #388
Dordrecht 2000-01, cat. #66
Los Angeles/The Hague 2006, cat. #3
ca. 1771 Rome Princess Scalamare
1906 Paris Basile de Schilichting Collection
1910 Munich Julius Bohler (Art Dealer)
1912 New York, NY Collection of Samuel Untermyer
May 10 1940 New York, NY Sale, Parke Bernet, Lot #52
1940 to 1945 Collection of Alvin and Irwin Untermyer
E.A. Honig
June 9, 2014

Ertz argues strongly that this is a second-rate work ("mittelmassigen Qualitat"), the product of Jan the Younger and Rubens's studio. Nobody else has agreed with him on this. If he were right, the painting would be much later than all other scholars date it, by at least a decade. According to Mulders, the painting was done for Albrecht and Isabella, and the composition was initiated by Rubens with Brueghel doing his parts afterwards.

Theme is from Ovid, Metamorphoses, VIII. Ch. V, 545-76 and IX, 89-92.
Copy sold at Fischer Gallery, Lucerne, August 26-September 3, 1938 (canvas, 121 x 164 cm).