Memorial to Admiral Sir Clowdisley Shovell

This 1725 Memorial to Admiral Sir Clowdisley Shovell at the National Gallery of Art in Washington depicts the English admiral who died when his fleet was wrecked on the Scilly Isles in 1707, one of the worst peacetime naval disasters in British history. Ricci, who had spent 1711-16 in England, produced commemorative imagery for British patrons that included this allegorical memorial. The combination of the historical event with allegorical figures — Fame, Victory, and Neptune lamenting the lost admiral — combined the English commemorative portrait tradition with Italian Baroque allegorical convention in a distinctly hybrid work.

The memorial composition combines portraiture with allegorical elements in Ricci's characteristic decorative manner, the warm Venetian palette lending dignity and grandeur to the commemorative subject.