Prometheus Being Chained by Vulcan

{{Short description|Painting by Dirck van Baburen}}

{{Infobox artwork

| image_file = Prometheus door Vulcanus geketend, SK-A-1606.jpg

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| image_size = 300px

| title = Prometheus Being Chained by Vulcan

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| artist = Dirck van Baburen

| year = {{start date|1623}}

| medium = Oil on canvas

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| width_metric = 184

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| city = Amsterdam

| museum = Rijksmuseum

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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.{{Citation needed|date=February 2007}}

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.{{cite web|title='Prometheus Being Chained by Vulcan' on the Rijksmuseum site|url=http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/aria/aria_assets/SK-A-1606?page=4&lang=en&context_space=aria_catalogs&context_id=Term_00026116_en|accessdate=21 April 2011}}Lilian H. Zirpolo, Historical Dictionary of Baroque Art and Architecture, London, Rowman & Littlefield, 2nd edition, 2018, p. 90