Hendrick van Steenwijck the Younger (Flemish, c. 1580-1640)
Aeneas Rescuing Anchises from Burning Troy
INV-8861
Hendrick van Steenwijck the Younger (Flemish, c. 1580-1640)c. 1610
Aeneas Rescuing Anchises from Burning Troy
Hendrick van Steenwijck the Younger (Flemish, c. 1580-1640) →17th Centuryoil on panelpaint
Date
c. 1610
Medium
Oil on panel
Dimensions
22.6 × 31.5 cm (8 7/8 × 12 3/8 in.); Framed: 29.6 × 38.5 × 6.1 cm (11 5/8 × 15 1/8 × 2 3/8 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Wirt D. Walker Endowment
Anchises, former lover of the goddess Aphrodite, is here shown as an old man asleep in bed. In the background at right, seemingly disconnected from the quiet bedchamber, his home city of Troy burns. In this rendition of the Classical story, Hendrick van Steenwijck drops the viewer into a moment of suspended action as Anchises’s demigod son, Trojan hero Aeneas, rushes in to save his father and carry him to safety. Throughout, Steenwijck emphasizes contrasts between father and son: age and youth, light and dark, peace and chaos. The crisp and detailed depiction of the room itself attests to Steenwijck’s expertise in painting architectural interiors, a specialty he shared with his artist wife, Susanna van Steenwijck.
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