# Mercury and Paris

[View the canonical artwork record](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/creti-donato-re73c5a89c0a74e/mercury-and-paris-raabc1c7452a4a1>)

## Artwork

- Artist: [CRETI, Donato](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/creti-donato-re73c5a89c0a74e>)
- Date: 1701-1750
- Technique: Oil on canvas, 272 x 176 cm

## Commentary

The subject of this monumental, larger than life-sized canvas was taken from Homer&#39;s Iliad. It was painted in the 1710s as a pendant to the Hermes Bringing the Head of Argos to Hera \(Palazzo Comunale, Bologna\). The image of the young and classically handsome Greek shepherd is one of the eighteenth century&#39;s most sublime scholarly syntheses of ancient and modern figurative culture. It is the successful crossbreeding of two great masters of seventeenth century Bolognese art: Annibale Carracci and Guido Reni, in two masterpieces Creti had long admired. He took up the same spatial arrangement of the figures and the representation of Mercury in flight in the &lt;a onclick=&#34;return OpenOther\(&#39;/html/c/carracci/annibale/farnese/farnes17.html&#39;\)&#34; href=&#34;/html/c/carracci/annibale/farnese/farnes17.html&#34;&gt;mythological scene&lt;/a&gt; Annibale frescoed at the gallery of the Palazzo Farnese in Rome at the turn of the seventeenth century; at the same time he drew on the frontal pose of &lt;a onclick=&#34;return OpenOther\(&#39;/html/r/reni/1/samson.html&#39;\)&#34; href=&#34;/html/r/reni/1/samson.html&#34;&gt;Reni&#39;s Triumph of Samson,&lt;/a&gt; a heroic and brazen virile nude painted in the second decade of the seventeenth century. &lt;p&gt; &lt;table align=left cellpadding=5 border=1 width=320 bgcolor=&#34;\#99cccc&#34;&gt; &lt;tr valign=middle&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;/support/gif/listen.gif&#34; border=0 valign=middle&gt; Suggested listening \(streaming mp3, 3 minutes\):&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&#34;\#&#34; onClick=&#34;w=window.open \(&#39;/music1/18\_cent/gluck\_paris.html&#39;, &#39;newWin&#39;, &#39;scrollbars=yes,status=no,dependent=yes,screenX=0,screenY=0,width=350,height=350&#39;\);w.opener=this;w.focus\(\);return true&#34;&gt;&lt;b&gt;Cristoph Willibald Gluck: Paride ed Elena, Paris&#39; aria&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;/table&gt;

## Related artworks

- [Achilles Handing over to Chiron](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/creti-donato-re73c5a89c0a74e/achilles-handing-over-to-chiron-rc1fa6feabb291f>)
- [Alexander the Great Cuts the Gordian Knot \(detail\)](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/creti-donato-re73c5a89c0a74e/alexander-the-great-cuts-the-gordian-knot-detail-r4855f7ea9e5290>)
- [Alexander the Great Cuts the Gordian Knot](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/creti-donato-re73c5a89c0a74e/alexander-the-great-cuts-the-gordian-knot-r030824049a5b19>)
- [Alexander the Great Threatened by His Father](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/creti-donato-re73c5a89c0a74e/alexander-the-great-threatened-by-his-father-r8de7fb4394c2e2>)
- [Penitent St Peter](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/creti-donato-re73c5a89c0a74e/penitent-st-peter-rf250c8037062d4>)
- [Perseus and Andromeda](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/creti-donato-re73c5a89c0a74e/perseus-and-andromeda-ra3eae8f5f078b7>)
- [Sibyl \(detail\)](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/creti-donato-re73c5a89c0a74e/sibyl-detail-rd4c451b57c1f34>)
- [Sibyl](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/creti-donato-re73c5a89c0a74e/sibyl-r00074302fef34b>)
- [Sibyl](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/creti-donato-re73c5a89c0a74e/sibyl-r11796435800186>)
- [The Charity](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/creti-donato-re73c5a89c0a74e/the-charity-rb7d502222384de>)

## Attribution

[Web Gallery of Art](<https://beta.wga.hu/pages/about>)