Mercury About to Slay Argus

Mercury slaying Argos forms the first act of the Io myth from Ovid's Metamorphoses: Jupiter commanded Mercury to lull the hundred-eyed Argos to sleep with his flute playing and then kill him, freeing Io from Juno's jealous surveillance. Amigoni's 1731 Tate canvas depicts the moment just before the fatal stroke, Mercury's caduceus raised and the somnolent Argos beginning to close his eyes. The subject offered artists the unusual challenge of suggesting that Argos possesses many eyes — some alert, some closing — within a naturalistic figure. Amigoni is primarily interested in the graceful tension of the moment: Mercury poised, Argos surrendering to sleep in a pastoral setting. The Tate acquired this as a significant example of Rococo mythological painting in England, documenting the Continental influence that reshaped British taste in the 1730s before Hogarth's nativist response reasserted domestic traditions.

Amigoni constructs a classic Rococo diagonal from the sleeping Argos in the lower left to the alert, raised-arm Mercury at upper right, creating kinetic tension between the two figures' opposing states of consciousness. Mercury's caduceus provides the compositional apex. The warm landscape background is built in warm green-gold glazes that establish the outdoor pastoral setting.