Tarquin the Elder Consulting Attius Navius

This Tarquin the Elder Consulting Attius Navius at the Getty Museum depicts a scene from Roman legendary history — the augur Navius demonstrating his prophetic powers by cutting a whetstone with a razor, convincing the skeptical king of augury's validity. Sebastiano Ricci, the Venetian painter born in Belluno in 1659 who became one of the great decorative painters of the early eighteenth century, brought his characteristically warm, luminous palette and fluid figure style to this unusual classical subject. The Getty Museum's Italian Baroque holdings place this alongside other examples of the learned classical subjects that cultured patrons across Europe commissioned from leading painters.

The scene is rendered with Ricci's characteristic luminous palette and dramatic gestures, the figures arranged in a dynamic composition that combines Baroque energy with the Venetian tradition of rich color.