Feast of the Gods (art)

The Feast of the Gods or Banquet of the Gods as a subject in art showing a group of deities at table has a long history going back into antiquity. Showing Greco-Roman deities, it enjoyed a revival in popularity in the Italian Renaissance, and then in the Low Countries during the 16th century, when it was popular with Northern Mannerist painters, at least partly as an opportunity to show copious amounts of nudity.^[1]

Often the occasion shown was specifically either the wedding of Cupid and Psyche or that of Peleus and Thetis, but other works show other occasions, especially the Feast of Bacchus, or a generalized feast. While the wedding of Cupid and Psyche is just the happy ending of Psyche's story, the wedding of Peleus and Thetis is part of the grand narrative of Greek mythology. The feast was interrupted by Eris, goddess of discord, who threw the golden Apple of Discord inscribed "for the most beautiful" into the company, provoking the argument that led to the Judgement of Paris, and ultimately to the Trojan War. Eris is sometimes shown in the air with the apple, or the apple with the diners, and sometimes the feast forms a background scene to a painting of the Judgement, or vice versa.^[2] This wedding was also used as a political symbol around the time of the marriage of the Dutch leader William the Silent to Charlotte of Bourbon in 1575.^[3]

Generally, despite Thetis being a sea-nymph, depictions of her wedding have the same inland setting as other scenes. A depiction by Hans Rottenhammer (1600, Hermitage Museum) probably of the wedding of Neptune and Amphitrite is set in a beach-side pavilion, with the sea full of an unruly crowd of marine mythological creatures. The Feast of Achelous is derived from Ovid in his Metamorphoses, who describes how Theseus is entertained by the river god in a damp grotto, while waiting for the river's raging flood to subside: "He entered the dark building, made of spongy pumice, and rough tuff. The floor was moist with soft moss, and the ceiling banded with freshwater mussel and oyster shells."^[4] The subject was painted a number of times, with Rubens producing an early version with Jan Brueghel the Elder,^[5] and a later picture attributed to his "school", and Hendrick van Balen collaborating with Jan Brueghel the Younger. All show much smaller and more decorously behaved groups than the wedding parties.