| Prometheus Being Chained by Vulcan | |
| Artist: | Dirck van Baburen |
| Medium: | Oil on canvas |
| Height Metric: | 202 |
| Width Metric: | 184 |
| Metric Unit: | cm |
| Imperial Unit: | in |
| City: | Amsterdam |
| Museum: | Rijksmuseum |
Prometheus Being Chained by Vulcan is an oil painting of 1623 by Dirck van Baburen of the Utrecht School, and an example of Baroque chiaroscuro.
The painting represents a tale from Greco-Roman mythology. Mercury, the messenger of the gods, watches the club-footed blacksmith god, Vulcan, punish the bold and cunning Titan Prometheus for stealing fire from the gods and giving it to mortals. Prometheus's punishment is to be bound to a rock and to have his liver consumed daily by an eagle, which appears partially at the top left.
The painting mysteriously has two signatures: the first is a clear signature below the right-hand shoulder of Prometheus. During a restoration of the painting, a second signature was discovered at the lower left by his hand.
In some versions of a Greek creation myth, Prometheus forges humans from clay and the stolen fire brings them to life. A painting, Adam and Eve, also by Baburen, was sold at auction in 1707 together with the Prometheus Being Chained by Vulcan, and one might conjecture that the two works formed a pair, both being illustrations of creation.[1] [2]