Anthony Van Dyck (workshop of) - Hero and Leander ca. 1626 - 1627 - Oil on canvas 147 x 195 cm The painting depicts the famous myth of Hero and Leander: the young man, swept away by the waves while trying to reach his beloved, lies lifeless on the seashore. Beside him Hero, in despair, bends down clasping her hands in grief, while Cupid tearfully witnesses the tragedy. In the foreground, shells and a crab evoke the marine context, while in the background the nocturnal landscape contributes to emphasising the dramatic pathos of the scene.The painting shows close affinities with the language of Antoon van Dyck in the years of his Italian sojourn, where the artist confronted the models of Titian and Veronese, reinterpreting them with emotional intensity and Baroque luminism. The monumentality of the male nude, Ero's refined gestural expressiveness and the theatrical rendering of the whole reveal a language of high quality, fully consistent with Dyck's mythological inventions.The work was studied by Didier Bodart, who wrote expertise on it in 1993 and later published it in The Painting of Flanders. 100 Flemish Paintings from the 15th to the 18th Century (Rome, Viviani Arte, 1999, pp. 82-83). The scholar advanced a date around 1626-1627, also based on the technical analysis of the weave of the canvas and the number of filaments per centimetre, coinciding with those of other autograph works by Van Dyck of the same period, and therefore placing its execution during the painter's Italian sojourn. Bodart, The Painting of Flanders. 100 Flemish paintings from the 15th to the 18th century, Rome, Viviani Arte, 1999, pp. 82-83.