Neptune Offering Gifts to Venice

Tiepolo painted this around 1750 for the Doge's Palace, to replace a worn 16th-century panel over a door in the Hall of the Four Doors. The subject is Venice herself, shown as a crowned woman, receiving the sea god Neptune as he tips out a great horn of coral, pearls and gold coins at her feet. It is a picture of a maritime empire being showered by the ocean it ruled. By the time Tiepolo painted it, though, that empire was mostly memory. Venice had long since lost its trading dominance and its Mediterranean grip, and the Republic was living on its reputation. The gold still spills brightly from Neptune's horn, an image of wealth kept up on the ceiling while it drained away in the world outside.