Flora

Behind this reclining goddess lies the real subject, the port of Antwerp, spread along the river Scheldt. In 1559 Antwerp was the richest trading city in northern Europe, and Jan Massys painted Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers and plenty, as a kind of blessing laid over it. She holds up a small bunch of red and white carnations, flowers that stood for love and good fortune. Massys had spent years in exile in France and Italy, and her cool, elongated body carries the polished manner of Fontainebleau. The distant view of the harbor may be the hand of his brother Cornelis, a landscape specialist, so that two brothers together describe the city that made them.