Deukalion and Pyrrha

Dated 1655 and executed by a protagonist of the Baroque period in Genoa and Rome, it is based on the Metamorphoses of Ovid (I, 125-415). The couple Deucalion and Pyrrha carry large stones (according to the oracle: the "bones of the mother", i.e. the earth), which after the sacrifice to Zeus would have to be thrown backwards at the command of the oracle. Only in this way, as the only surviving humans after the great flood, the human race could be brought back to life from the stones. New humans are represented in the foreground as a bizarre ensemble of different heads. The meaning of the face wedged under a boulder with its tongue out and the laurel-wreathed muse above remains open. Despite the vivid neo-Venetian color scheme, the composition closely resembles the modeling of a bas-relief. Moreover, the unrestrained energy is reminiscent of Gian Lorenzo Bernini.