Medaillon met Neptunus en Mercurius 1800 - 1841

Joannes Bemme created this print of Neptune and Mercury sometime around the turn of the 19th century in the Netherlands. It would have functioned as an elaborate frame for some other image. Both figures are gods appropriated from classical antiquity. Bemme uses them to represent the importance of trade to Dutch society. Neptune, god of the sea, signifies the importance of sea routes for trade. Mercury, messenger of the gods and god of commerce, is pictured with his caduceus and symbolizes trade itself. The Dutch Republic was, of course, a major mercantile power in the 17th and 18th centuries. Rotterdam, where the print was made, was at the center of this world of international trade. To understand this image fully, we need to look at the economic history of the Netherlands and the ways in which its cities fashioned their identities around commerce. We need to ask, what does it mean to take gods from another culture and use them to justify a city’s economic power?