Scene from Ancient History

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

National Gallery of Art

Two women and a man in front of a column and arch nearly fill this vertical, oval painting. The two women have pale skin with round faces, wide-set eyes, and full pink lips. The woman in the lower left quadrant of the painting sits on a moss-green cushion with her body facing our right almost in profile. Her face turns to us and is tipped up, the eyes cast heavenward and her lips parted. She has blond hair and wears a white gown with a voluminous skirt. A gold and possibly jeweled belt is looped over one shoulder and crosses her torso. Her right hand, closer to us, rests on the pillow and the other is slightly lifted to reach toward or touch the hip of the man to the right. The second woman is behind the first and wears a gold crown tucked into her long brown hair. Her mouth is closed, and her head is tipped slightly back and away so she looks at us from the corners of her heavy-lidded eyes. She wears a low-cut bodice and a buttercup-yellow robe, and one hand rests on the other woman’s shoulder. Dominating the right half of the composition, the clean-shaven man has dark, tan-brown skin. He wears a silver and gold helmet topped with a gold lion and a royal blue plume. His armor is scarlet red, and a lapis-blue cloak wraps across his middle back and over one forearm. He holds a sword in one hand a what looks like a lock of brown hair or fur in the other. He looks down at the first woman with his head tipped toward us so his eyes are hidden by the helmet’s brim. The column and arch behind the trio is pale yellow, and gray clouds, a sliver of blue sky, and the tip of a green tree are visible in the distance to the left.