Mercury, Argus, and Io

Artist Salvator Rosa (Italian, 1615 - 1673)

Date1653-1654

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 44 1/8 x 55 7/8 inches (112.09 x 141.91 cm)
Framed: 51 13/16 x 63 5/8 x 3 5/8 inches (131.62 x 161.62 x 9.21 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number32-192/1

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

European Art

Terms

DescriptionA pool of water, surrounded by rocky, exposed cliffs and gnarled trees, appears in the center foreground and middle ground. In the right foreground, a man (Mercury) sits on a large rock. Wearing a winged cap and yellowish gold tunic, he plays a pipe. Sitting on the ground next to him is a man (Argus) who is clad in a short red tunic; he leans his right arm on a rock. Just behind Mercury there rises a majestic tree. To the right, at the water's edge, a gray heifer (Io) looks across the pool toward three other cows on the opposite bank. In the center background is a hill town with a large mountain behind it.
Exhibition History

Exhibition History

British Institution, London, May 22-June 1816, no. 37.

British Institution, London, June 1852, no. 69.

An Exhibition of Italian Paintings and Drawings of the Seventeenth Century, Durlacher Brothers, New York, January 18-February 6, 1932, no. 9.

Landscape Paintings, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, May 14-September 30, 1934, no. 6.

The Greek Tradition in Painting and the Minor Arts, Baltimore Museum of Art, May 15- June 25, 1939, unnumbered.

A Loan Exhibition of Paintings by Salvator Rosa, Durlacher Brothers, New York, March 8-27, 1948, no. 12.

The Gods of High Olympus and a Hero, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, February 15-March 20, 1983, no. 41.

Gallery Label

According to the Latin poet Ovid, Io was one of Jupiter's many loves. Their affair was frustrated by his wife Juno, who turned Io into a white heifer and entrusted her to the giant Argus. Here, Mercury, sent by Jupiter to recover the heifer, lulls Argus to sleep with his pipe just prior to beheading him. The setting, with its jagged rocks and gnarled trees, is appropriately menacing given this impending act of violence. Rosa's typically sublime and savage landscapes were once admired as a romantic alternative to Claude Lorrain's classical, peaceful settings. Indeed, the Nelson-Atkins Rosa once hung as a pendant to a Claude painting now in the National Gallery in London.

Provenance

Don Agostino Chigi (1634-1705), Palazzo Chigi Odescalchi, Piazza Santi Apostoli and Palazzo Chigi, Piazza Colonna, Rome, by 1658-1705;

By descent to Don Agostino Chigi Albani (1771-1855), Palazzo Chigi, Piazza Colonna, Rome, by 1799;

Purchased from Albani by Robert Sloane (d. 1802), Rome, 1799-1802;

With Sloane’s heirs, Rome, 1802-1803;

Purchased from Sloane’s heirs by Thomas Philip, 3rd Baron Grantham, 2nd Earl de Grey and 5th Baron Lucas (1781-1859), London, and Wrest Park, Bedfordshire, 1803-1859;

By descent to Nan Ino Herbert (1880-1958), 9th Baroness Lucas, by November 16, 1917;

Purchased at her sale, Historical Portraits, Pictures and Drawings, the Property of Lady Lucas, Christie, Manson and Woods, London, November 16, 1917, lot 109, by Cohen, 1917;

Mrs. James Dunning, by July 3, 1931;

Purchased at her sale, Old Pictures, the Property of Prince Demidoff, the Property of Mrs. James Dunning and Old Pictures and Drawings from Other Sources, Christie’s, London, July 3, 1931, lot 6, by L. Browne, 1931;

With Durlacher Brothers, New York, by November 1931-1932 [1];

Purchased from Durlacher, through Harold Woodbury Parsons, by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1932.

NOTES:

[1] Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Durlacher Brothers Records, Box 26, Client Book, no. 564.

Published References

Lady Anne Miller, Letters from Italy, 2^nd ed., vol. 2 (London: Edward and Charles Dilly, 1777), 237.

Johann Jacob Volkmann, Historisch-Kritische Nachrichten von Italien, welche eine Beschreibung dieses Landes, der Sitten, Regierungsform, Handlung, des Zustandes der Wissenschaften und insonderheit der Werke der Kunst enthalten, vol. 2 (Leipzig: Caspar Fritsch, 1777), 339.

Friedrich Wilhelm Basilius von Ramdohr, Über Mahlerei und Bildhauerarbeit in Rom für Liebhaber des Schönen in der Kunst, vol. 3 (Leipzig: Weidmanns, Erben und Reich, 1787), 106.

Catalogue of pictures of the Italian and Spanish schools, with which the proprietors have favoured the British Institution, exh. cat. (London: British Institution, 1816), 13.

William Buchanan, Memoirs of Painting, vol. 2 (London: R. Ackermann, Strand, 1824), 112-13, 121, 124.

Lady Sidney Morgan, The Life and Times of Salvator Rosa, vol. 2 (London: Henry Colburn, 1824), 367.

Catalogue of pictures belonging to Thomas Philip Earl de Grey: at his house, in St. James’s Square ([London?], 1834), unpaginated.

Georg Kaspar Nagler, ed., Neues allgemeines Künstler-Lexicon oder Nachrichten von dem Leben und den Werken der Maler, Bildhauer, Baumeister, Kupferstecher, Formschneider, Lithographen, Zeichner, Medailleure, Elfenbeinarbeiter, etc, vol. 13 (München: Verlag von E. A. Fleishmann, 1843), 377.

Catalogue of pictures of the Italian, Spanish, Flemish, Dutch, French and English masters, with which the proprietors have favoured the British Institution, exh. cat. (London: British Institution, 1852), 10.

Gustav Friedrich Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain, vol. 2 (London: John Murray, 1854), 85.

Leandro Ozzola, Vita e opera di Salvator Rosa (Strasbourg: J.H.E. Heitz, 1908), 175, 182.

Catalogue of Historical Portraits, Pictures, and drawings, the property of Lady Lucas, removed from Wrest Park, Ampthill, Bedforshire (London: Christie, Manson and Woods, November 16, 1917), 17.

Elizabeth Wheeler Manwaring, Italian Landscape in Eighteenth-Century England: A Study Chiefly of the Influence of Claude Lorraine and Salvator Rosa on English Taste, 1700-1800 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1925), 67n7.

Hans Werner Schmidt, “Die Landschaftsmalerei Salvator Rosas” (PhD diss., Halle-Wittenberg, Vereinigten Friedrichs Universitӓt, 1930), 43-44.

Old Pictures, the Property of Prince Demidoff, the Property of Mrs. James Dunning ND Old Pictures and Drawings from Other Sources (London: Christie, Manson and Woods, July 3, 1931), 4.

An Exhibition of Italian Paintings and Drawings of the Seventeenth-Century, exh. cat. (New York, 1932), unpaginated.

“Seventeenth-Century Italian Art in Durlacher Show,” Art News 30 (January 23, 1932): 8.

“Nelson Gallery of Art Special Number,” The Art Digest 8, no. 5 (December 1, 1933): 12.

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The Handbook of the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1933), 20, 138, (repro.).

Bryson Burroughs, Landscape Paintings, exh. cat. (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1934), 13-14.

Arthur McComb, The Baroque Painters of Italy: An Introductory Historical Survey (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1934), 126.

George Boas et al., The Greek Tradition in Painting and the Minor Arts, exh. cat. (Baltimore: Baltimore Museum of Art, 1939), 8-10, (repro.).

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 2^nd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1941), 24, 169.

A Loan Exhibition of Paintings by Salvator Rosa, exh. cat. (New York: Durlacher Brothers, 1948), unpaginated.

Carlyle Burrows, “Art of the Week: A ‘Modern’ Old Master,” Herald Tribune (March 14, 1948), 4, (repro.).

Howard Devree, “Revaluing a Master: Salvator Rosa Paintings Make Impressive Show,” New York Times (March 14, 1948): sec. 2, p. 8.

Judith Kaye Reed, “Presenting Salvator Rosa, Early Romantic,” Art Digest 22 (March 15, 1948): 17.

Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 262.

Ottillie Gertrude Boetzkes, Salvator Rosa, Seventeenth-Century Italian Painter, Poet, and Patriot (New York: Vantage Press, 1960), 175.

Luigi Salerno, Salvator Rosa (Milan: Edizioni per il Club del libro, 1963), 143-44.

Ralph T. Coe, “The Baroque and Rococo in France and Italy,” Apollo 96 no. 130 (December 1972): 537 [repr. In Denys Sutton, ed., William Rockhill Nelson Gallery, Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City (London: Apollo Magazine, 1972), 69].

Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1972), 177, 472, 589.

Luigi Salerno, “Salvator Rosa: Postille alla mostra di Londra” Arte Illustrata, nos. 55-56 (1973): 412.

Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 113, (repro.).

Luigi Salerno, L’opera completa di Salvator Rosa (Milan: Rizzoli, 1975), no. 143, p. 96, (repro.).

Luigi Salerno, Pittori di paesaggio del seicento a Roma/ Landscape Painters of the Seventeenth Century in Rome, vol. 2 (Rome: Ugo Bozzi, 1977-78), 87.

Richard W. Wallace, Salvator Rosa in America, exh. cat. (Wellesley, MA: Wellesley College Museum, 1979), 35.

Ludovico Zorzi, “Figurazione pittorica e figurazione teatrale,” in Storia dell’arte italiana, vol. 1, Questioni e metodi (Turin: Einaudi, 1979), 457, (repro.).

Luigi Salerno, Pittori di paesaggio del seicento a Roma/ Landscape Painters of the Seventeenth Century in Rome, vol. 3 (Rome: Bozzi, 1980), 1123.

Christopher Wright, Italian, French and Spanish Paintings of the Seventeenth Century (London: Frederick Warne, 1981), 58.

Hugh Brigstocke, William Buchanan and the 19^th- Century Art Trade: 100 Letters to His Agents in London and Italy (London: Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 1982), 91.

Ross E. Taggart and Roger Ward, The Gods of High Olympus and a Hero, exh. cat. (Kansas City: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1983), 13, 24, (repro.).

Burton B. Fredericksen, “A Pair of Pendants by Claude Lorrain and Salvator Rosa from the Chigi Collection,” Burlington Magazine 133, no. 1061 (1991): 543-46, (repro.).

Nicholas H.J. Hall, ed., Colnaghi in America: A Survey to Commemorate the First Decade of Colnaghi New York (New York: Colnaghi, 1992), 10, (repro.).

Humphrey Wine and Olaf Koester, Fransk Guldalder: Poussin og Claude maleriet i det 17. århundredes Frankrig/ Poussin and Claude and French Painting of the 17^th century, exh. cat. (Cophenhagen: Statens Museum for Kunst, 1992), 147, 149, (repro.).

Jane Davidson Reid, Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1300-1990s, vol. 1 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 597.

Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 170, (repro.).

Humphrey Wine, Claude: The Poetic Landscape, exh. cat. (London: National Gallery Publications, 1994), 15-16, 78, (repro.).

Rosemary MacLean, “O gran Principe o gran Prelato”: Claude’s Roman patrons and the appeal of his landscape easel paintings,” Gazette des beaux-arts 126, no. 1523 (December 1995): 229-230, 233n29, (repro.).

Elliot W. Rowlands, The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: Italian Paintings 1300-1800 (Kansas City, MO: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1996), 15, 309-17, (repro.).

Old Master Paintings and Drawings (London: Colnaghi, 2003), unpaginated, (repro.).

Susan Russell, “Salvator Rosa and Herman van Swanevelt,” in Salvator Rosa e il suo tempo, 1615-1673, eds. Sybille Ebert-Schifferer, Helen Langdon and Caterina Volpi (Rome: Campisano, 2010), 346, 348, (repro.).

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