Amphitrite and Neptune
Detail: approximate detail size: 3.5 inches high. Oil painting on prepared MDF board. The whole painting measures 32 x 24 inches.
Copy after the Rococo painter Sebastiano Ricci. The original Neptune and Amphitrite was painted around 1691-1694 and measures 94 x 75cm and is to be found in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid, Spain. This fact is mysteriously omitted from the Wikipedia article.
The painting is a wonderful excuse to paint a beautiful girl, naked apart from a strategically-placed piece of cloth. It is interesting how the god Neptune, a spare sea-nymph and Amphitrite herself can all balance on a heavy bench perched on a seashell being drawn in different directions by dolphins ridden by sea-cherubs and not look immediately unfeasible from an engineering point of view. (I suppose engineers might beg to differ, but only after they've stopped admiring the nude goddess.)
(A question for puritans to ask themselves: if God didn't want us to admire the naked human body, why did He make it so beautiful?)
Here is an image of (almost all of) my copy in its present unfinished state:
All images are copyright © Martin Dace 2005, 2006: you must contact me for permission if you wish to publish or reproduce my pictures. Permission will usually be granted for web use provided my authorship and copyright is acknowledged and a link back to my site is provided. A link from my website to yours is also a possibility.