The riches of the sea with Neptune, tritons and two nereids

Luca Giordano
Italy
1634 – 1705

Giuseppe Recco
Italy
1634 – 1695

The riches of the sea with Neptune, tritons and two nereids
1684
oil on canvas
Currently on display, Gallery 15
Place made
Naples, Italy
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
234.5 x 296.0 cm
Credit line
Mary Overton Gift Fund 1997
Accession number
971P3
Signature and date
Signed with monogram l.r. corner, green paint "R". Not dated.
Provenance
King Charles II of Spain, Buen Retiro Palace, Madrid, by 1700, remaining in the Spanish Royal collection until 1813. Removed by Joseph Bonaparte to Breeze Point, Bordentown, N.J., 1813, remaining there until his death in 1844. Offered together with its pendant "Galatea with fish" as lots 69 & 70 in the Bonaparte Sale, Bordentown, N.J., Sept. 17 and 18, 1845, and again in 1847 as lots 1 and 2. Mr and Mrs Sumner A. Parker, Baltimore, MD, by 1939. Acquired by Colnaghi's in Baltimore in 1994.
Media category
Painting
Collection area
European paintings

  • This gargantuan canvas depicts Neptune, the ancient Roman god of the sea, receiving the tribute of the ocean in the form of a mountain of sea creatures – eels, rays, sardines, sea bass, swordfish, pesci rossi (goldfish), lobster, turtles, urchins, periwinkles, oysters and more. Produced through a collaboration between still life and figure painters, the work belongs to a series of large Neapolitan Baroque paintings, the majority of which have been lost.

    The entire project was conceived by Luca Giordano, the most distinguished Italian artist of his time, for an important annual religious festival inaugurated in Naples in 1684. Giordano himself painted the figures of Neptune and his companions. He was assisted by Giuseppe Recco, the foremost Neapolitan painter of fish, who completed the lower half, a virtuosic display of marine still life painting and among the largest ever attempted. The painting was acquired by King Charles II of Spain for his famous palace of Buen Retiro in Madrid, and it remained in the Spanish royal collection for more than a century.

    Tony Magnusson, Curator of European Art, 2016–18


  • [Book] AGSA 500.