Armed Three-Master with Daedalus and Icarus in the Sky

Fashioned after a drawing by the renowned Flemish artist Pieter Bruegel, Huys’s print depicts the Greek myth of Icarus and his father Daedalus, who had been imprisoned in a tower by King Minos of Crete. In order to escape, Daedalus created wings for himself and his son. Before taking flight, Daedalus warned Icarus not to fly too close to the sun as it would melt the wax holding the wings together. Overcome with the excitement of flight, Icarus did not heed his father’s advice and fell into the ocean. Like Bruegel’s painting of the same subject, now in the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, this formulation of the narrative depicts the young man’s hubristic downfall as a minor detail unnoticed by the rest of the world.