A BRUSSELS TAPESTRY, woven in wools and silks, depicting Jupiter beckoning an elderly man from his cottage with Mercury in attendance in an extensive arcadian wooded landscape, the shadowed borders with repeating foliate-scrolls centred by a laurel-wreath, flanked by hanging oil-lamps beneath pointed crowns and centred by a flaming altar, early 18th Century, cut and reduced slightly, restorations

Details
A BRUSSELS TAPESTRY, woven in wools and silks, depicting Jupiter beckoning an elderly man from his cottage with Mercury in attendance in an extensive arcadian wooded landscape, the shadowed borders with repeating foliate-scrolls centred by a laurel-wreath, flanked by hanging oil-lamps beneath pointed crowns and centred by a flaming altar, early 18th Century, cut and reduced slightly, restorations
136½ x 107in. (347 x 272cm.)

Lot Essay

According to a Greek story adapted by Ovid, Baucis and Philemon, an old Phrygian couple, were the only ones willing to receive Jupiter and his son Mercury when they came to earth in disguise. In return for the couple's hospitality, the Gods saved them from a storm and turned their cottage into a temple, appointing them priest and priestess. Their wish to die together was granted and they were turned into an oak and a linden tree with intertwined boughs

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