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Neptune Calming the Storm, or the ‘Quos Ego’ Plate

Date : XVIIIe

This large plate is decorated with a scene from the Aeneid, in which Neptune, angered by the winds unleashed by Juno to thwart Aeneas’s destiny, calms the storm by threatening the winds with the words ‘Quos Ego…’ ([You] whom I [must punish…]). The composition’s imposing, decorative character, required by its subject matter and skilfully executed by the painter, was a rarity in Rouen ceramic production at the beginning of the 18th century. The quality of the painting of the figures, the respect for perspective and, particularly, the foreshortening, all point to the artist’s substantial academic training; the fluency of the brushstrokes suggesting that the work was completed by a painter well accustomed to working on canvas.