Support The single, horizontally grained, quarter-sawn oak plank is approx. 1.3 cm thick at the top and approx. 0.7 cm at the bottom. The top edge was trimmed slightly, possibly to remove insect damage, traces of which are still present. The reverse is bevelled at the top and on the upper left and right, and has regularly spaced saw marks and remnants of a wax seal. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1626 and that the top edge includes 6 sapwood rings. The panel could have been ready for use by 1637, but a date in or after 1643 is more likely.
Preparatory layers The double ground extends over the edges of the support at the bottom and on the left and right, but not over the top edge. The first, dark grey layer consists of white and fine black pigment particles and is followed by an orange layer.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared reflectography.
Paint layers The paint extends almost up to the edges of the support at the bottom and on the left and right, and up to the top edge. Infrared reflectography revealed wide brush marks, probably part of an initial lay-in, roughly indicating the composition. Some dark undermodelling is visible to the naked eye in the two men. The figures, cows and horses were brought on rapidly, simultaneously with the background, with many wet-in-wet transitions. The foreground was applied up to and around the compositional elements, followed by the sky, which was executed around the larger trees. The smaller trees and other details and highlights were introduced last. The paint layer is smooth and has little impasto.
Laurent Sozanni, 2009 / additions by Lisette Vos, 2023

Poor. Pronounced drying cracks are visible in the face and hands of Mercurius. The reddish-brown paint of the figures, cows and horses has faded. The paint surface appears abraded throughout and is covered by old retouchings and a discoloured varnish.

…; collection Leendert Dupper Willemsz (1799-1870), Dordrecht;¹¹C. von Lützow, ‘Die vormals Dupper’sche Sammlung’, Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst 5 (1870), pp. 227-30, esp. p. 228. by whom bequeathed to the museum, with 63 other paintings, 12 April 1870²²NHA, ARM, IS, inv. 30, nos. 123 (8 March 1870), 132 (25 April 1870, no. 245); NHA, ARM, Kop., inv. 39, pp. 62-63 (11 May 1870).

Object number: SK-A-297

Credit line: Dupper Wzn. Bequest, Dordrecht

When the old herdsman Battus witnessed Mercury stealing Apollo’s oxen, the god gave him a heifer to remain silent. Mercury later came back in disguise and offered Battus a reward if he would reveal the location of the stolen cattle. The latter complied, so Mercury turned him into a rock to punish him for his greed.³³Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. II, 680-707. Scenes of this episode from Ovid’s Metamorphoses are quite rare in Dutch painting, and most of those that have survived date from the 1630s,⁴⁴E.J. Sluijter, De ‘heydensche fabulen’ in de schilderkunst van de Gouden Eeuw: Schilderijen met verhalende onderwerpen uit de klassieke mythologie in de Noordelijke Nederlanden, circa 1590-1670, Leiden 2000, pp. 45, 226-27, notes 86-88. and are from the circle around Jacob Pynas and Claes Moeyaert.⁵⁵Jacob Pynas, Mercury and Battus, Kassel, Gemãldegalerie Alte Meister; illustrated in E.J. Sluijter, De ‘heydensche fabulen’ in de schilderkunst van de Gouden Eeuw: Schilderijen met verhalende onderwerpen uit de klassieke mythologie in de Noordelijke Nederlanden, circa 1590-1670, Leiden 2000, p. 412, no. 128; copy after Claes Moeyaert, Mercury and Battus, present whereabouts unknown; illustrated in ibid., p. 412, no. 129. It is not known where the otherwise obscure ‘W. Ossenbeck’ (as he signed this panel) worked, but he was clearly inspired by those models. He not only placed the scene in a southern, Italianate landscape, as his Amsterdam colleagues did, but he also left no room for Apollo, who had figured in earlier depictions.⁶⁶One example from the late sixteenth century is a print by Peeter van der Borcht from a series of illustrations of Ovid’s Metamorphoses; see H. Mielke and U. Mielke, The New Hollstein Dutch & Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts 1450-1700: Peeter van der Borcht: Book Illustrations, IV, ed. G. Luijten, Ouderkerk aan den IJssel 2006, pp. 140, 176, no. 1688.

Erlend de Groot, 2026

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

1876, p. 144, no. 287 (as Mercury and Io); 1880, pp. 236-37, no. 259 (as Mercury and Io); 1887, p. 38, no. 259 (as Mercury and Io); 1903, p. 201, no. 1811 (as Willem Ossenbeeck, Mercury and Io); 1976, p. 429, no. A 297 (as Willem Ossenbeeck, Mercury and Io)

Erlend de Groot, 2026, 'W. Ossenbeck, _, 1632', in J. Bikker (ed.), _Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20025951