2-728-341 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Ewer with Triumph of Galatea, c. 1700. When the Cyclops Polyphemus discovered that his betrothed, the sea nymph Galataea, had been unfaithful, he pulverized her lover Acis with a rock. In grief, Galatea turned her lover’s blood into a river, and Acis became god of the Sicilian river that bears his name. Here, Galatea escorts a swarm of sea creatures in celebration of Acis’s apotheosis. The subject was perfectly suited to both Soldani’s fluid and highly animated style, and the traditional function of the ewer as a vessel for pouring water.