A Couple with a Mirror

In this virtuoso composition the subject of male desire is not cloaked in mythology but rendered as a genre scene. The sexual connotation of the captive parrot suggests that the artist may have decided to set the scene in a brothel. However, the protagonist is clearly a self-portrait of the artist, giving the composition an ironical rather than a moralizing-judgemental sub-context. Hans von Aachen became court painter to Emperor Rudolf II in 1592, following in the footsteps of his younger fellow-artist Heintz, with whom he had already socialized during his extended Italian sojourn.