Aeneas Crowning Cloanthus

For a long time this canvas went by another name, Aeneas at the Court of Latinus, and the museum still records that old title. The scene is in fact the prize-giving after a boat race in Virgil's Aeneid. Aeneas holds out a laurel wreath to Cloanthus, the winning captain, while the masts and pennants of the ships crowd the harbour on the left. Bol painted it in the early 1660s for the Amsterdam Admiralty, one of the boards that ran the Dutch navy, and the story carried a lesson for its officers. In Virgil all four captains were rewarded, even the one who had thrown his helmsman overboard for ignoring an order. The poet Joost van den Vondel wrote verses on the painting, stressing that good government needs both firmness and generosity.