Mercury stealing the Herds of Admetus guarded by Apollo

A young man, naked but for a red cloak and an animal skin, is seated on a rock in the foreground, playing a pipe. This is Apollo, Greek god of the sun and of music and art, dressed as a shepherd. As a punishment for killing the Cyclops, Jupiter sent Apollo to be herdsman to Admetus, king of Pherae in Thessaly (Ovid, Metamorphoses, 2). Apollo, distracted from his duties by his music, failed to notice Mercury stealing the king’s cattle, shown in the background.This large fresco is one of ten which were painted by Domenichino and assistants to decorate a magnificent garden pavilion at the Villa Aldobrandini, in Frascati near Rome. Eight of them were transferred to canvas and are now in our collection. The frescoes were in the Stanza di Apollo, a large room in the right-hand wing, which also contained an elaborate fountain with figures of Apollo and the Muses.The iconographical scheme was designed by Domenichino’s friend, Giovanni Battista Agucchi, both to glorify the Aldobrandini family and to express their philosophical and religious ideas. Many of the scenes, including this one, were taken from the Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In a very intellectual programme, Agucchi used classical stories to symbolise contemporary ideas. Apollo was not just the god of the sun but also of the music and the arts, and the Stanza was a temple to the arts.This fresco was originally on the right-hand side of the room. Domenichino designed the overall programme and individual compositions, but much of the actual painting was left to assistants, especially on this side of the room, since by the time work got this far he was busy with other projects. The fresco’s poor condition makes it impossible to tell Domenichino’s hand apart from that of his assistants. The composition of the scene is unlike any of the others: it is not arranged in recessed planes with trees and hills framing the sides, and figures in the centre distance. Unusually, there are no surviving preparatory drawings for this painting, though this may be purely an accident of survival and does not necessarily indicate that Domenichino was less involved in its design.