Coral Fishing (The Realm of Amphitrite)

Around 1585 Cardinal Ferdinando de' Medici was living in Rome, and this small picture on copper was made for his private study there. The painter Giovanni Baglione, writing about the artists of Rome in 1642, said the women's faces were portraits of the most beautiful ladies of the city. The crowned figure at the centre, holding a branch of red coral, has been identified as Clelia Farnese, daughter of the powerful Cardinal Alessandro Farnese and Ferdinando's lover. Zucchi cast her as Amphitrite, queen of the sea. Pearls, shells and coral pile up on the rocks around her, while swimmers dive for more in the bay behind. Scholars have read the men with bows, the monkey and the parrot as a nod to the Americas, whose riches were then reaching Europe by sea.