# Allegory of Peace, Art and Abundance [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [AACHEN, Hans von]() - Date: 1601-1650 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 197 x 142 cm ## Commentary Allegory of Peace, Art and Abundance 1602 Oil on canvas, 197 x 142 cm The Hermitage, St. Petersburg The allegorical painting in the Hermitage is a characteristic work by Hans von Aachen, who was himself a typical representative of the distinctive cosmopolitan school that formed at the turn of the 17th century at the court of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II in Prague. The three female figures embody Peace \(with an olive branch\), Science and the Liberal Arts \(with a sphere and a palette\) and Abundance \(with a goblet and a horn of plenty\). The subject was intended to symbolically extols the Emperor's peaceful policies that led to prosperity and the flourishing of learning and the arts. The allegorical, encoded content, the unstable composition with movement along the diagonal, the aristocratic elongation of the figure, the cold tone of the picture, elements of eroticism and disturbing lighting are all features of the Rudolfine artistic circle that eclectically combined features of Italian and Low Countries Mannerism. ## Related artworks - [A Couple in a Tavern]() - [Allegory]() - [Anna of Tyrol]() - [Bacchus, Ceres and Cupid]() - [Bacchus, Venus and Cupid]() - [Boy with Grapes]() - [Couple with Mirror]() - [David and Bathsheba]() - [Declaration of War before Constantine]() - [Gaspar Rem]() - [Jupiter, Antiope and Cupid]() - [Pallas Athena, Venus and Juno]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()