Mercury Enamored of Herse, Daughter of Cecrops

Mercury is depicted in mid-air with his winged sandals and caduceus, looking down at a group of elegantly dressed women in a classical landscape. The women carry plates and vessels toward a circular temple on the right, while a fortified city is visible in the distance. The scene captures the moment Mercury falls in love with Herse during a festival for the goddess Pallas Athena.

As a scene from Ovid's Metamorphoses, this work illustrates the classical narratives that formed the bedrock of Renaissance humanism and Neoplatonism. Mercury, the Roman counterpart to Hermes, was of central importance to the esoteric tradition as the patron of alchemy and the perceived author of the Hermetica.