Valley of the Meuse with Apollo and Daphne

Artist Hans Bol Flemish, 1534 - 1593

Date1578

Place of OriginAmsterdam, Netherlands

MediumDistemper or oil on canvas; wormy chestnut frame c. 1930's

DimensionsStretcher: 18 1/8 × 29 1/8 in. (46 × 74 cm)
Frame Dimensions: 24 1/2 × 2 in. (62.2 × 5.1 cm)

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LineThe Hyde Collection Trust, 1952

Object number1971.9

On View

On view

Collections

European Paintings & Sculpture

SignedSigned lower edge, 9 3/4 in. from left corner & 3/4 in. up: "Hans Bol 1572 (8)."

DescriptionHans Bol, a popular printmaker and landscape painter, offers a fantastical view of the Meuse River valley. Shepherds, peasants, and town folk wander through a small village and surrounding landscape, while at the lower left the Greek god Apollo races in pursuit of Daphne. Daphne is in the process of transforming into a laurel tree, a metamorphosis resulting from an intervention by her river-god father, Peneus, undertaken to save her from being abducted by the lustful Apollo. Dressed in generic classical garb, her hands and lower arms have already become tree branches. Apollo, dressed like a hunter and carrying a bow, is inspired to love by a small, winged Cupid, flying above with his own bow and arrow aimed at the god. Such classical tales became increasingly popular in sixteenth-century northern Europe.

Bol uses a variety of techniques to create the sense of a panoramic landscape. The high horizon line locates viewers above the scene, peering down; there is even a hint of the curvature of the earth’s surface in the distant horizon. The dominant movement from the distant right side to the up-close left results partly from scale changes, but also from the effects of "blueing out": atmospheric perspective. This technique, already used by ancient Roman artists, paints the most distant landscape in hazy, light colors and with less detail; closer parts become clearer and less foggy looking, until the darkest, most detailed areas are the largest and closest. The meandering river, zigzagging through the valley along the same right-to-left, back-to-front diagonal, and Apollo and Daphne’s chase from right to left, leads viewers’ eyes through the landscape to the point of focus of the narrative. Under the influence of artists like Joachim Patinir and Pieter Bruegel, this formula for landscapes—using dominant diagonals and zigzag movements, without a centrally located focal point—became highly popular.

There appears to be a companion landscape by Bol at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art: a canvas of the same size and date offering a view of the river Scheldt near Antwerp ("River Landscape," 1578). Oddly, however, the painting does not include any classical figures, though there are lovers, so it has been suggested "love" connects the two canvases.

The two figures are labelled adjacent to their bodies, "APOLLO" and "DAPHNE," and the painting is signed and dated, also in the lower left corner: "Hans Bol 1578"; there is some discrepancy regarding the reading of the final numeral. Possibly the date reads "1572."

Text by Penny Howell Jolly, Professor Emerita of Art History, Skidmore College, February 2026Exhibition History"A Glens Falls Legacy: The Pruyn Family," "A Shared Life: Selections from The Pruyn Family Collection," The Hyde Collection, Charles R. Wood Gallery, June 8 - August 24, 2008.Provenanceby 1946, New York, NY, Joan Mitchell Fine Painting
1946, Glens Falls, NY, Mrs. Charlotte P. Hyde
1952, Glens Falls, NY, The Hyde Collection Trust