95 - 17TH-CENTURY PAINTER OF THE EUROPEAN SCHOOL

17TH-CENTURY PAINTER OF THE EUROPEAN SCHOOL PROMETHEUS, ASSISTED BY MINERVA, GIVES LIFE TO THE FIRST MAN WITH CELESTIAL FIRE Oil on canvas, 140 x 108 cm. 19th-century gilded and carved wooden frame. The painting depicts a rare and sophisticated episode from the myth of Prometheus, shown here in the act of breathing life into the first man through celestial fire, in the presence of Minerva. Prometheus, depicted as a vigorous, bearded male figure draped in a flowing red robe, holds a long rod ending in a blazing flame and brings it close to the naked youth, an image of the newly formed man. Between the two stands Minerva, recognizable by her feathered helmet and spear, in accordance with a mythological tradition in which the goddess assists Prometheus in the creation and animation of humanity. Particularly significant is the episode depicted in the background, in the upper part of the composition, which completes the narrative by illustrating the divine origin of the flame used by Prometheus. The scene alludes, in fact, to the Titan’s celestial journey, accompanied by Minerva, and to his acquisition of fire from the Sun’s chariot. This iconography finds an important precedent in the 16th-century figurative tradition dedicated to Prometheus’s creation of humankind. A particularly significant comparison is offered by the series *Metamorphoses* published in 1589 by the workshop of Hendrick Goltzius, in which Prometheus animates man with celestial fire while, in a secondary episode set among the clouds, the Titan, accompanied by Minerva, lights his torch from the Sun’s chariot. The theme also underwent significant development in Italy. A study preserved at the Musée du Louvre, attributed to the workshop of Annibale Carracci and dating from around 1597–1602, a preparatory work for the decoration of the Farnese Gallery in Rome, depicts Prometheus showing his creation to Minerva: the Titan presents to the goddess the man he has created so that she may bestow life upon him. The popularity of this motif in the 17th century is also documented by subsequent printed reproductions of the Farnese decorations, including Carlo Cesi’s 1657 engraving depicting Minerva teaching Prometheus how to breathe life into the statue he created. The complex narrative structure of this painting, which brings together different moments of the story within the same space, reflects the Mannerist figurative tradition that developed in Italy, Fontainebleau, and the Netherlands between the second half of the 16th century and the early 17th century. In this context, the mythological inventions of Antoine Caron and their dissemination through the engravings of Thomas de Leu are also of particular interest. The composition, however, appears to have been developed independently of the graphic references identified to date: in fact, it does not seem to reproduce either Goltzius’s print or the Carracci-style version exactly, but rather combines various elements of the established iconographic tradition of Prometheus into a personal pictorial narrative. CONDITION REPORT Recent relining. Wood’s light reveals no noteworthy paint restorations; the painting is in excellent condition.