Aglauros’s Vision of the Bridal Chamber of Herse, from the Story of Mercury and Herse

Aglauros’s Vision of the Bridal Chamber of Herse, from the Story of Mercury and Herse

Giovanni Battista Lodi da Cremona

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This splendid tapestry depicts the seventh, and penultimate, episode in the story of the ill-fated love affair between Herse, a mortal princess from Athens, and Mercury, god of trade, profit and travel. As recounted by the Roman writer Ovid in Book 2 of his narrative poem, The Metamorphoses, Mercury spied Herse participating, as a flower-garlanded virgin, in a festival honoring Minerva, and approached her father’s palace. Mercury petitioned her sister, Aglauros, to help him woo Herse. Stricken with jealousy, Aglauros envisioned in great detail how the union between Mercury and her sister might appear. It is that vision, rather than an actual bridal night, that we see represented here, in an exquisitely sumptuous re-edition of the tapestry series, heavy with precious thread, and woven with a virtuoso display of different surface effects. Also in The Met's collection is the final tapestry in the set (41.190.134).

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Aglauros’s Vision of the Bridal Chamber of Herse, from the Story of Mercury and HerseAglauros’s Vision of the Bridal Chamber of Herse, from the Story of Mercury and HerseAglauros’s Vision of the Bridal Chamber of Herse, from the Story of Mercury and HerseAglauros’s Vision of the Bridal Chamber of Herse, from the Story of Mercury and HerseAglauros’s Vision of the Bridal Chamber of Herse, 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.