The Feast of the Gods During the Wedding of Peleus and Thetis

Author: Albert J. Elen

Represented is a well-known story from Greek mythology. A company of Olympic gods and goddesses, some scantily clad, are gathered around a table to celebrate the wedding of the mortal Peleus and the sea goddess Thetis. Hermes (Mercurius in Latin) with his winged helmet is seated at front left, holding a richly decorated wine ewer in his right hand and a tazza in his left, turning toward a lady in armour, Athena (Minerva). The other two goddesses, placed in the centre and at front right, are Hera (Juno) and Aphrodite (Venus). In the background, at the end of the table beneath a cloth hung between branches of trees, the bridal couple is seated. The real action, however, is taking place right in front of them. An object is thrown on the table by the female figure with the outstretched arm and dragon wings leaning against the tree in the background. She is Eris, the goddess of chaos, strife and discord. Resentful for not having been invited to the party she takes revenge by throwing a golden apple inscribed ‘for the prettiest’, causing confusion among the three goddesses. They cast covetous eyes upon the golden apple, Athena and Hera also pointing to it with their outstretched left arms. This is the moment captured by Van Mander. Peleus does not know whom to choose and eventually the mortal Paris, son of the Trojan king Priamos, is invited to judge. Each of the candidates tries to influence Paris. Tempted most by Aphrodites’s promise to give him the most beautiful woman on earth, Paris chooses her and she receives the golden apple. His reward is Helen, wife of the Spartan king Menelaos. The abduction of Helen by Paris is the cause of the Trojan war, in which one of the yet unborn sons of Peleus and Thetis, Achilles, plays a prominent role as one of the Greek heroes. In this epic war Aphrodite takes the side of the Trojans, Hera and Athene the Greek side.

The love story of Peleus and Thetis is described in book XI of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, but the wedding and its grave consequences are not. In his discussion on the Metamorphoses in the first part of his Schilder-Boeck, Van Mander elaborates on the two following, crucial episodes, adding a moralizing interpretation.¹ The story is an example of making the wrong choice: sensual pleasures, outer beauty, love and lust (Aphrodite), instead of wisdom, knowledge and virtue (Athena) or power and richness (Hera).²

The drawing is the design for a print (ill. 1)³, which is, as could be expected, one of a set of two, the companion of The Judgment of Paris (ill. 2).⁴ They were probably engraved by Nicolaes Clock. The preliminary drawing for the second print is not known and hopefully may surface some day, like the present drawing did in 1991.

From around 1585 mythological subjects became increasingly popular with Dutch mannerist artists, especially in prints.⁵ In 1589, Jacques Razet published a large engraving with The Wedding of Peleus and Thetis, engraved by Jacques de Gheyn after a design by Crispijn van den Broeck (ill. 3).⁶ In this print the crowded banquet is situated in the clouds with the table at right angle to the picture plane. Van Mander, who chose the same subject a little while after that, must have known this print but conceived quite another composition, which is literally down to earth. The typical mannerist figures, in artificial poses, with elongated arms and legs, are placed around a table against a wooded background. Van Mander’s figures are more dynamic than those in Van den Broeck’s print. Remarkable is the repetition of the heads of the two couples sitting near the right-hand corner of the table, rendered in lost profile.

The watermark in this folio sheet represents the coat of arms of the noble Lippe-Schwalenberg family, and is of German make, found in documents dated in the 1580s and 1590s kept in German archives. This may indicate that Van Mander had a German paper supplier, or that he took some quires of this paper home on his return from Italy and Austria, travelling through Germany.