Mythological or Allegorical Representation

This shaped canvas was cut to fit above one of the room's two chimneypieces. The museum gives it a cautious title, a mythological or allegorical scene, and does not commit to a subject. Its room text suggests Venus and Vulcan, the goddess of love and her husband, the blacksmith of the gods, and the figures would suit that reading, a powerful bearded man with a red cloth across his knees and a pale young woman leaning towards him. The overmantel on the other chimneypiece shows the Republic, the Dutch state in the form of a woman. Unlike the grey Elements on the walls, this picture is painted in full colour.