Thetis Receiving from Vulcan the Shield for Achilles

The sea goddess Thetis has come to Vulcan with a request. Her son Achilles has lost his armour at Troy, and she asks the smith of the gods to make him new weapons. In the Iliad Vulcan agrees at once, out of old gratitude, because Thetis had taken him in and cared for him when his mother Juno threw him off Mount Olympus. Heemskerck gives him his Cyclopes, the giant smiths who work the forge, and puts the finished shield in his hands. This panel and the Vulcan, Venus and Mars beside it were painted around 1540 as the two wings of one triptych. The centre, Venus and Cupid in Vulcan's Forge, is now in the National Gallery in Prague, so all three scenes belonged to the same god and his workshop. Both wings were later sawn down, losing roughly 70 centimetres at the bottom. Heemskerck painted the figures full length, and the museum asks that they be judged that way.