The Feast of Achelous

The composition resembles that of the eponymous work by Rubens and Jan Brueghel I in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (see W.A. Liedtke, Flemish Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1984, I, pp. 194-8; II, pl. XIV, figs. 74-5). As Liedtke shows, Rubens chose a dramatic moment in Ovid's account of the banquet given by the river god Achelous for Theseus and his companions. In the present picture, the emphasis is placed on the end of the story (which Rubens had also included), when 'lo, a nymph.... one of the attendants with locks flowing free, appeared and served them from her bottomless horn with all the fruits of Autumn' (Ovid, Metamorphoses; IX: 89-92). The presence of Mercury has yet to be explained; but the Triumph of Amphitrite in the background may refer to the role of Neptune in transforming Perimele - who had been beloved by Achelous - into an island.

For the attribution to Stalbemt, compare the figures in The Triumph of David of 1619 in the Prado (see M. Díaz Pádron, Museo del Prado, Catálogo de Pinturas I. Escuole Flamence, 1975, p. 382, no. 1782). Closely similar, too, is the Banquet of the Gods at Dresden, which is signed and dated 1622 (see K. Andrews, 'A Pseudo Elsheimer Group: Andriaen van Stalbemt as a Figure Painter', The Burlington Magazine, 1973, p. 302, fig. 49). The rocks and landscape are painted in the style of Joos de Momper, while the flowers, fish and metalwork could be the work of Jan Brueghel II.