The Triumphal Procession of Bacchus

Bacchus, the god of wine, is coming home in triumph from India, and Heemskerck shows where he has been. There is a panther by the wheels of the chariot, and dark-skinned companions walk among the revellers, the old sign of the god's conquest of the East. The procession mixes the smooth, polished nudity of ancient statues with humour and some frankly coarse moments. The panel dates from about 1536 or 1537, most likely just after Heemskerck came home to Haarlem, and the museum sees in it the first high point of the muscular figure style he took from Roman painting. He chose an apt place for his name. In the lower left corner lies a colossal marble foot, broken off some giant statue, and on its base is written Martinus Hemskerkius pingebat, Latin for Maarten van Heemskerck was painting this. That form, was painting rather than painted, goes back to the Roman writer Pliny, who said the great Greek artists signed their work that way, as if it were never quite finished.