Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, etcher

Here an extravagantly dressed female figure accepts a cornucopia filled with coins, jewels, and coral from Neptune, god of the sea. She is an allegory of Venice, receiving gifts from maritime trade, the source of her wealth. She leans on the winged lion of Saint Mark, a symbol of Venice and a motif on its opulent cathedral, where Mark is reputedly buried.

Although Venice’s political and commercial power steadily declined in the early 1700s, literary and visual arts blossomed. The Tiepolos, among Venice’s most successful artists, continued to portray the image of opulence and spectacle favored by the city’s elite. Giovanni Domenico based this print on a painting by his father, Giovanni Battista, hanging in the Doge’s Palace.