Bernaert de Ryckere (Rijckere or Ricke), Flemish painter. The artist was born in Courtrai but became a member of the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke in 1561. Only five signed works by him are known, all in a style very much dependent upon the example of Frans Floris. A number of paintings signed with the monogram B have also been assigned to his hand.
The story with Diana and Actaeon was a favourite with the late Mannerist painters. This is understandable, because the myth, particularly in Ovid’s playful, witty and lively presentation, contains both stimulatingly erotic and shivering horror story elements and thus was perfectly suited for the contemporary spirit. In Ryckere’s painting, the nymphs, interrupted in their bath and toilette, turn toward the wandering hunter who descends toward their hiding place on a staircase carved into rock. The change in him is already beginning and the water of the spring scattered on him has made his head turn into that of an antlered deer. However, the action remains weightless, the painting is in fact a landscape decorated with puppet-like figures.
The painting is signed on the rock at left: 1582 B. D. Ryckere.
Lucretia, the virtuous wife of Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, committed suicide, as she could not endure the shame of being raped by Sextus Tarquinius, as Livy related. This deed secured the legendary Roman lady a place in the series of exemplary females that in European painting, particularly in court circles, were depicted as examples of virtue.
The painting shows in a classical setting the Virgin and Child with St John the Baptist kneeling nearby.
