The Flemish metropolis Antwerp thanked its position to overseas trade. No wonder that its Baroque artists regularly painted mythological scenes representing the Greek or Roman god of the Sea, Poseidon/Neptune. Here we see Poseidon, his wife Amphitrite and their little son Triton surrounded by marvelous sea creatures.

 

 

Flemish painter

Antwerp 1575 – 1632 Antwerp

 

History painter (religious, mythological and allegorical subjects).

Van Balen is the best known and most prolific specialist of so-called cabinet paintings, be it on copper or on panel.

 

He was a pupil of Adam van Noort.

His early works are influenced by Bartholomäus Spranger and by Hans Rottenhammer.

Van Balen himself had 26 pupils, amongst whom Sir Anthony van Dijck and Frans Snyders. Three of his sons (he had 11 children) were also painters.

 

He often painted the staffage in landscapes of numerous other painters, amongst whom Jan Brueghel I and II.

 

 

The Triumph of Poseidon represents the Greek god of the sea and his wife Amphitrite, the most beautiful of the Nereids surrounded by sea creatures, such as Nereids (sea nymphs),Tritons (half man half fish) and Hippocamps (fish-tailed horses on which the couple is seated).

 

Poseidon had watched the Nereids, daughters of the sea god Nereus, dancing on the shore of the Island of Naxos. He fell in love with Amphitrite, but she was afraid and fled to the most remote part of the ocean, to Atlas. It was finally a dolphin who discovered and persuaded Amphitrite to return. The couple had one son, Triton, seated in front of them on a fish.

 

Any subject relating to Neptune (the Roman name of the Greek god of the Sea, Poseidon) was popular in Antwerp, a town that thanked its prosperity to overseas trade. The river god Scaldis (representing the River Scheldt) was shown in exactly the same way as Poseidon in many Antwerp paintings, engravings and sculptures.

 

 

Because it is such a happy colourful early 17th century Flemish painting.