(Ninove 1606–1667 Brussels)
Venus and Apollo with the Muses,
oil on canvas, 76 x 88 cm, framed

We are grateful to Massimo Pulini for suggesting the attribution of the present painting on the basis of a photograph and for his help in cataloguing this lot.

Pulini has traced the artistic and biographic details of the Flemish artist Louis (or Lodewijk or Ludovicus or Aloisio) Cousin who italianised his style as well as his name to Luigi Primo. He took the moniker Gentile whilst in Rome when he entered the confraternity of the Bentvueghels, the celebrated congregation of Flemish painters.

Luigi Gentile was elected ‘Principe’ of the Accademia di San Luca between 1651 and 1652 and on his return to his native land he became friends and a point of reference to Jan Vermeer. Perhaps it is the long series of names and monikers that contributed to confounding and veiling the identity of this artist, whose versatility of subjects and style, coinciding with his exceptional talent, brought him to fill among the highest positions of the Italian academies, bringing him into contact with the highest exponents of European culture of the age.

Owing to the still early studies in the reconstruction of Gentile’s biography, it is not possible to attain a close dating of the present work, and therefore it should be assigned generically to the middle years of the century, when the artist had reached full maturity, and when he was engaged in the most prestigious role that the artists operating in Rome could assign. Indeed, it should be recalled that nomination as ‘Principe’ of the Accademia di San Luca was attained by ballot from within a pre-elected group of three, chosen in recognition of their professional merits. Therefore, this role was held by all the leading artists of the seventeenth century.

The large composition of Venus with the dying Adonis by Gentile in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (oil on canvas, 173 x 332 cm, inv. no. 1705) has been fundamental to the reconstruction of the artist’s ouevre.

In the present composition a valley descends towards a band of distant sea, a hill rises in the foreground from which tall trees grow, framing an encounter between various figures of classical myth. A cloud bearing the goddess Venus, her son Cupid and a retinue of naked nymphs and winged putti, descends from Olympus towards earth, approaching a crowd of celebrants that together create a garden of delights, representing the ideal of Arcadia, the earthly paradise of the Greco-Roman world. Arranged in the clearing between the valley and the woods are graceful, mostly female figures, crowned with flowers. Although only a few of their usual attributes can be distinguished, they can be identified as the Muses, the inspirers of art and devotees of Apollo, who is recognisable at the centre of the gathering with a lyre under his arm. The divinity of the Arts turns his gaze towards the heavenly cortege while he holds the right hand of a standing maiden, who in her other hand holds up a cluster of thunderbolts. The identification of this figure, parading the symbols of Jupiter is unclear, yet it is certain that this mythological encounter is taking place under the aegis of Beauty and its outward expression.

Classical culture underwent a period of renewed interest towards the mid-seventeenth century, and this composition is a refined expression of rich symbolic references. In this clearly serene vision of an ideal landscape, free of dark or contrasting shadow, dominated by delicate chromatic transitions, by physical beauty and the fluidity of flowing fabrics, an idea of suspended time is described.