Classical Landscape with Mercury Catching Sight of Herse (oil on canvas)

sisters returning from festival of Minerva; The story depicted is from the Roman poet Ovid's Metamorphoses (II, 708-729). Mercury, who has just punished the shepherd Battus for disloyalty, is flying over the farmlands and woods of Attica when he spots a procession of young girls wending their way to the sanctuary of Minerva. It is love at first sight and he falls for the most beautiful daughter of Cecrops, Herse. He later descends to earth in the hope of encountering her and the story ends with the transformation of the envious Aglauros, Herse's sister, into stone.