Landscape with Mercury and the Dishonest Woodsman

Artist: Salvator Rosa (Italian, 1615 - 1673)

Original Dimensions: 49 1/2" x 79 5/8"

Location: National Gallery of Art, London

About Artwork: (About 1663) "The story of the honest woodsman – the subject of Rosa’s painting – is taken from Aesop’s Fables, a collection of moral tales from ancient Greece. In the story, the god Mercury takes pity on a woodsman who has accidentally dropped his axe into a river. He retrieves two axes from the water, one gold and one silver; the honest woodsman claims neither as his own, so Mercury gives him both as a reward, as well as his original axe. On hearing this, a dishonest woodsman swears that he too has dropped a tool in the water. Rosa’s painting shows Mercury emerging from the river holding a golden axe, and the woodsman dashing forwards to claim it. The god denied him the axe. This painting was commissioned in around 1663 by Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna, a major art collector in Rome. During the 1660s, Rosa’s landscapes became increasingly dramatic, with windswept trees, rushing torrents of water and stormy clouds. His paintings of this period are among his most powerfully inventive works." - (National Gallery of Art, London)