Mercury Rescues the Disguised Io after Beheading Argus (c. 1695): Artwork and History

Mercury Rescues the Disguised Io after Beheading Argus (c. 1695) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Johann Michael Rottmayr (Austrian, 1654–1730).

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

Johann Michael Rottmayr began painting ambitious series like this one in his native Salzburg, Austria, after returning from several years of artistic training in Venice. His new works featured mythological subjects, energetic compositions, and a saturated palette—the same qualities that inspired Flemish Baroque artists. Here, the Roman god Mercury has beheaded the guardsman Argus, whose crimson blood pours out from his neck onto the ground below. Mortal Io, who has been transformed into a cow by her lover Jupiter, looks on placidly as Mercury rescues her from her imprisonment by Jupiter’s jealous wife, Juno.

Object facts

• Title: Mercury Rescues the Disguised Io after Beheading Argus
• Date: c. 1695
• Artist attribution: Johann Michael Rottmayr (Austrian, 1654–1730)
• Place of origin: Austria
• Medium: Oil on canvas
• Dimensions: 81.3 × 125.2 cm (32 × 49 1/2 in.)
• Type: Painting
• Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe
• Reference number: 1961.37

Collection credit

Gift of Jacob S. Sherman

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The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.