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Neptune and the Winds

1760s
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 638
For millennia, sailors depended on unpredictable winds that many saw as signs of divine favor or punishment. The ancient poet Virgil told how the sea god Neptune saved the hero Aeneas from shipwreck by calming turbulent winds. Neptune’s raised hand announces his command, halting personifications of the winds whose cheeks puff with air. Behind him, Aeneas clings to his ship’s wheel, but the drama unfolds where we stand. The artist intended this composition as a ceiling design, probably for Madrid’s Royal Palace, and has therefore placed us on the stormy sea at the mercy of the gods above.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Neptune and the Winds
  • Artist: Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (Italian, Venice 1696–1770 Madrid)
  • Date: 1760s
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: Round painted surface, 24 1/2 x 24 1/2 in. (62.2 x 62.2 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: Rogers Fund, 1937
  • Object Number: 37.165.4
  • Curatorial Department: European Paintings

More Artwork

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Adoration of the Magi
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (Italian, Venice 1696–1770 Madrid)
ca. 1753 (?)
Half-dressed Nymph with two children, surrounded by four men, from the Scherzi
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (Italian, Venice 1696–1770 Madrid)
ca. 1743–50
St. Joseph with the Child Jesus
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (Italian, Venice 1696–1770 Madrid)
The Family of the oriental Peasant, from the Scherzi
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (Italian, Venice 1696–1770 Madrid)
ca. 1740
A Shepherd with two Magicians, from the Scherzi
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (Italian, Venice 1696–1770 Madrid)
ca. 1740

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