A Mythological Sea Triumph

In 1703, Queen Anne commissioned Antonio Verrio to paint one of the most important unfinished rooms at Hampton Court Palace: the Queen's Drawing Room. The Queen's Apartments had been left unfinished and unfurnished after the death of Mary II in 1694; Anne intended them to be used by her consort, Prince George of Denmark, and the Drawing Room, centrally positioned on the East Front overlooking the formal gardens, was intended as its decorative focus. Verrio's work at Hampton Court represents his last major commission before his death in 1707, and the Queen's Drawing Room was his last completed mural scheme. The separate scenes on the ceiling and three walls are painted in the fashionable illusionistic style of the Baroque age, with the room transformed into a marble hall, open to the sky; they recognise Britain's emerging dominance over land and sea, a process catalysed during the time it took Verrio to paint the room, with the 1704 military victories at Blenheim and Gibraltar.

The central scene on the south wall, painted as if it was a tapestry, complete with an illusionistic floral border with gold fringes, is a curious and enigmatic design depicting a sleeping Cupid born on a four-horse aquatic chariot, surrounded by tritons, nereids and fantastic sea creatures, before the resting British fleet in a calm sea. It is possible that the scene is meant to show a 'Triumph of Amphitrite', the goddess of the sea, and by association Queen Anne's naval supremacy, supported on the opposite wall by her husband Prince George as Lord High Admiral. The figure of a sleeping Cupid may represent the victory of Divine Love over Profane Love, and by extension, Anne as 'mother of the nation', in recognition of the death, by 1705, of Queen Anne's five children (not to mention her 12 still births or miscarriages).

The smaller monochrome design above the door on the left of the wall shows the mythological tale of The Flaying of Marsyas, a satyr who rashly challenged the god Apollo to a musical contest and, in defeat, was punished for his arrogance.