01 Paintings, Olympian deities, by the Old Masters, with footnotes #35

Circle of Anthonie Van Montfoort, Genannt Van Blocklandt

The Death of Adonis

Oil on panel

67 x 124 cm

Private collection

Adonis was the mortal lover of the goddess Aphrodite in Greek mythology. He was conceived after Aphrodite cursed his mother Myrrha to lust after her own father, King Cinyras of Cyprus. Myrrha had sex with her father in complete darkness for nine nights, but he discovered her identity and chased her with a sword. The gods transformed her into a myrrh tree and, in the form of a tree, she gave birth to Adonis. Aphrodite found the infant and gave him to be raised by Persephone, the queen of the Underworld. Adonis grew into an astonishingly handsome young man, causing Aphrodite and Persephone to feud over him, with Zeus eventually decreeing that Adonis would spend one third of the year in the Underworld with Persephone, one third of the year with Aphrodite, and the final third of the year with whomever he chose. Adonis chose to spend his final third of the year with Aphrodite. More on Adonis

The painting's famous mythological subject is based on the account of Adonis's death in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Van Montfoort chose to depict the tragic moment when Venus discovers the body of her young, handsome lover after his fatal encounter with the wild boar that left him bleeding to death. Combining Classical as well as Flemish stylistic motifs, the painting is full of pathos and passion. Van Montfoort enhances the tragic scene with the presence of the three weeping Graces and the sobbing Cupid who, with the grieving Venus, replicate a Pieta scene. More on the Death of Adonis

Anthonie Blocklandt van Montfoort, Anthonie van Blocklandt or Anthonie van Montfoort (1533 or 1534 - 18 October 1583) was a Dutch painter.

He was born in Montfoort, where his father was at one time mayor. He went to learn under Hendrick Sweersz. in Delft and Frans Floris in Antwerp. In 1552 he returned to Montfoort, where he married the daughter of the then mayor.

Blocklandt then settled in Delft, where he produced paintings for the Oude Kerk and the Nieuwe Kerk, later lost to the beeldenstorm. In 1572, Blocklandt made a trip to Italy, after which he settled for good in Utrecht, joining a guild there in 1577. In 1579, he painted his best known work, the triptych The Assumption of Mary that is now in the Basilica of St. Martin in Bingen am Rhein.


Blocklandt painted biblical scenes, mythological subjects and portraits. He is early-Mannerist in style and he and Joos de Beer were responsible for the Mannerist style begun by Utrecht artists around 1590. Van Mander wrote that De Beer had many paintings by Blocklandt in his workshop that his pupil Abraham Bloemaert later copied. Few works can definitely be attributed to him. One of these is "Joseph interpreting Pharaoh's dream", now in the Centraal Museum in Utrecht. More on Anthonie Blocklandt van Montfoort

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