Flora1.0104_Tiepolo

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, 1696-1770, "The Triumph of Flora," oil on canvas, 1743-1744, Kress Collection (K1890), M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, no. 61-44-19.

Flora was the Roman goddess of flowers, gardens, spring, and love. Ovid's Fasti 5.183-378 mingled her myth with that of the Greek nymph Chloris who was abducted by Zephyr, the west wind, and transformed into Flora.

Commissioned by Count Heinrich von Brühl for Augustus III, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, this painting features gardenscape of Brühl's Marcolini Gardens in Dresden. (de Young label cited by Wiseman, 2) Ovid's Fasti explains how the Floralia were reinstated to appease the offended goddess. In this picture Tiepolo, following details of the Ovidian text to the T, celebrates Flora's return — restored Floralia in Saxony — under Augustus III.

Botticelli's Primavera (=FloraZephyr1.0003_Botticelli) is often read as a telling of the Flora myth.

The image at right was derived from Wikimedia Commons, which has colors enhanced, apparently, beyond the more naturally colored image at the De Young Memorial Museum's site.