Peter Paul Rubens
Helene Fourment in Her Bridal Gown, um 1630/31
Eichenholz, 163,5 x 136,9 cm
Erworben 1698 durch Kurfürst Max Emanuel
Inv. Nr. 340
The Drunken Silenus
Goat-footed satyrs and peasants accompany Dionysus' wise but drunken tutor to the strains of flute music and laughter. Rubens may quite possibly have taken the story from Ovid's Metamorphosis, however has not painted a scene faithful to the story, but is rather a freely fashioned symbolic representation: a humanist warning against the excesses of wine, with a wink. - The composition was originally conceived with half-length figures, but was later enlarged by Rubens himself. The painting hung in Rubens' house.