Mercury Delivers the Infant Bacchus to the Nymphs
ca. 1789–90
Medium
Etching, proof impression, partly reworked in graphite
Dimensions
Sheet: 19 9/16 × 25 1/4 in. (49.7 × 64.1 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
A. Hyatt Mayor Purchase Fund, Marjorie Phelps Starr Bequest, 2016
Accession Number
2016.566
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the late 1780s, French artist Bénigne Gaux captured a tender moment from classical mythology in *Mercury Delivers the Infantchus to the Nymph*. This etching depicts the swift god Mercury entrusting the baby Bacchus—future god of wine and revelry—to the care of protective nymphs on Mount Nysa, a scene drawn from Ovid's *Metoses*. Gagneraux, a skilled history painter and engraver trained in the neoclassical tradition, infused the work with the era's elegance and moral clarity, evoking antiquity amid the waning years of France's Ancien Régime. Printed as a proof impression and thoughtfully re...