Feast of Marine Gods thumbnail 1
Feast of Marine Gods thumbnail 2
Image of Gallery in South Kensington
On display at V&A South Kensington
Sculpture, Room 117

Feast of Marine Gods

Relief
ca. 1585 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

The relief shows Gods from Roman mythology together with other figures seated around a table spread with seafood. Clockwise from top left: Saturn; a youthful male figure; Diana (with crescent moon in her hair); Mercury; Mars; Venus Marina (?); a bearded, bald man; Neptune (?), and a female figure. Above is the flying figure of Jupiter. The relief has been variously attributed on stylistic grounds, but is possibly from the workshop of Andrea dell'Aquila (documented 1583 and 1608), the nephew of the leading Venetian sculptor Alessandro Vittoria (1525?-1608). Other variants exist in the Cleveland Museum of art and in New York (Metropolitan Museum of Art). The composition may have been adapted from a circular design, and a modified form was used for two silver dishes at Windsor Castle made by William Pitts for George IV as Prince of Wales in 1810-11 and 1812-13.


Object details

Categories
Object type
TitleFeast of Marine Gods (generic title)
Materials and techniques
Bronze relief
Brief description
Relief, bronze, a feast of Gods, Italian (Venice), probably ca. 1585
Physical description
The relief shows in the left distance two small figures in oriental dress, the foremost of whom gesticulates with raised left hand. In the foreground, round a table rising from the sea are seated a female figure on a dolphin, Mars, Mercury, Diana, a youthful male figure (Apollo?), Saturn, a female figure, Neptune, seated on a dolphin and a bearded man. The table is covered with sea food. Above appears the flying figure of Jupiter, a thunderbolt clenched in his raised right hand and his left resting on the neck of an eagle.
Dimensions
  • Height: 34cm
  • Width: 21.5cm
Object history
Bought with the assistance of the John Webb Trust from F. Partridge & Sons Ltd., for £500.
Production
probably ca. 1585
Subjects depicted
Summary
The relief shows Gods from Roman mythology together with other figures seated around a table spread with seafood. Clockwise from top left: Saturn; a youthful male figure; Diana (with crescent moon in her hair); Mercury; Mars; Venus Marina (?); a bearded, bald man; Neptune (?), and a female figure. Above is the flying figure of Jupiter. The relief has been variously attributed on stylistic grounds, but is possibly from the workshop of Andrea dell'Aquila (documented 1583 and 1608), the nephew of the leading Venetian sculptor Alessandro Vittoria (1525?-1608). Other variants exist in the Cleveland Museum of art and in New York (Metropolitan Museum of Art). The composition may have been adapted from a circular design, and a modified form was used for two silver dishes at Windsor Castle made by William Pitts for George IV as Prince of Wales in 1810-11 and 1812-13.
Bibliographic reference
Pope-Hennessy, John. Catalogue of Italian Sculpture in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Volume II: Text. Sixteenth to Twentieth Century. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1964, pp. 529, 31
Collection
Accession number
A.18-1955

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Record createdJune 24, 2009
Record URL
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