Polycrates and the Fisherman
1664
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
73 × 98.6 cm (28 1/2 × 38 13/16 in.); Framed: 87 × 112.4 × 7 cm (34 1/4 × 44 1/4 × 2 3/4 in.)
Classification
painting
Department
Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
44826
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
This painting and its companion piece recount the story of the Greek king Polycrates, as told by the ancient historian Herodotus. Polycrates, ruler of the island of Samos, worried that he was tempting fate with his great prosperity. He tried to introduce some counterbalancing misfortune into his life by throwing a precious signet ring into the sea, but it was swallowed by a large fish and returned to the king by a fisherman, the episode shown here. Polycrates’s good fortune came to an end when h...
About the Artist
Salvator Rosa · 1615–1673
Salvator Rosa was born in 1615 in Arenella, on the outskirts of Naples, into a world of artistic ambition and turbulent talent. His early training came through his maternal uncle, the painter Paolo Greco, and his brother-in-law Francesco Fracanzano, himself a pupil of the great Spanish-born Neapolitan master Jusepe de Ribera. Rosa showed a fierce independence from the start, resisting his father's...