Illuminated Creatures

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Valin Mattheis on Instagram: “The route is marked by the holy beasts, headless and bearing the golden fire of purification. Within the flames, the purity saints exhort…”
Ashmoleon Museum's exhibition "Bruegel to Rubens: Great Flemish Drawings", of Cadmus and Hermione: Design for the Decorations of the City of Antwerp on the Occasion of the Joyous Entry of Archduke Ernest of Austria in Antwerp, c. 1594, by Maerten de Vos. Pen in brown ink, with brown wash, over black chalk, on laid paper. © Museum Plantin-Moretus, Antwerp. This drawing by Maerten de Vos depicts a scene from Ovid’s poem Metamorphoses. The embracing figures are Cadmus, founder and king of Thebes, and his wife Hermione. Punished by the gods for unknowingly killing a sacred dragon, Cadmus was transformed into a snake, whilst his devastated wife begged the gods to grant her the same fate. Here they are presented mid-transformation, in a sensuously tragic embrace. The snakes have been rendered as