Bacchanal

This remarkable painting has all the characteristics of an early 17th-century history painting. It is colourful and displays rather uniform illumination. His focus on the naked body connects the painter with Mannerism, while his realistic rendering of skin colour may be traced to Caravaggism.

The scene portrays an episode from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in which it is told how the ecstatic, jubilant Bacchants - the devotees of Bacchus - adorned with ivy and vines, follow Bacchus on his journey around the world.