Mercury Changes Aglauros to Stone, from the Story of Mercury and Herse

Mercury Changes Aglauros to Stone, from the Story of Mercury and Herse

Giovanni Battista Lodi da Cremona

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Picking up the narrative from the tapestry of Aglauros’s Vision of the Bridal Chamber of Herse (also in The Met's collection, 41.190.135), this is the final episode in the story of the god Mercury’s love for the mortal princess of Athens, Herse. Emboldened by her jealous vision of Mercury and Herse’s union, Herse’s sister Aglauros barred his entry to her sister’s apartments. In his anger and frustration, Mercury transformed Aglauros into stone; in the tapestry, we see her disappearing into the door-frame. Mercury can seen again at the right, flying away and leaving the longed-for union with Herse unfulfilled. Such was the appeal of Lodi’s designs for this tapestry series that his cartoon-models were used, and reused, for decades: Willem de Pannnemaker, one of the most admired and successful master-weavers working in Brussels, directed the weaving of this sumptuous edition approximately thirty years after it was designed.

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Mercury Changes Aglauros to Stone, from the Story of Mercury and HerseMercury Changes Aglauros to Stone, from the Story of Mercury and HerseMercury Changes Aglauros to Stone, from the Story of Mercury and HerseMercury Changes Aglauros to Stone, from the Story of Mercury and HerseMercury Changes Aglauros to Stone, from the Story of Mercury and Herse

The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The holdings include sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also included among these works.