Mercury

In 1636 Philip IV of Spain began fitting out a small hunting lodge in the hills of El Pardo, north of Madrid, and ordered its walls filled with pictures from Ovid. More than 60 canvases crossed from Antwerp over the next two years. This one carries no story at all. It is a tall, narrow strip of painting, 180 centimetres high and 69 wide, made for one slot of wall, and a single god stands in it. Mercury holds the caduceus in his left hand, with wings on his hat and on his sandals, and the pose comes out of antique sculpture. A few others in the cycle were built the same way, among them a Fortune, the figure Renaissance imagery usually set beside him. The Prado catalogues the canvas as the work of Rubens's shop rather than his own hand, and no preparatory sketch for it is known.