The Golden Age

The Utrecht painter Joachim Wtewael was among the most sophisticated of Netherlandish Mannerists, as is evident from this exquisite cabinet picture on copper, dated 1605. The subject is taken from the opening pages of Ovid's Metamorphoses (I, 89 ff.), which describe a time before the ages of silver, bronze, and iron when "spring was everlasting . . . streams of sweet nectar flowed," and mankind, "without a law," did right and lived contentedly.