Childhood of Romulus and Remus

This 1708 Childhood of Romulus and Remus at the Hermitage depicts the legendary founders of Rome being nursed by the she-wolf, one of the most iconic images in Roman cultural tradition. The myth of the abandoned royal infants nourished by a wild animal was the founding narrative of Rome's greatness — beginning in abjection to reach world power — and its visualization was a statement about Roman civilization's origins in the natural world before the founding of the city. Ricci's treatment brings his Venetian decorative sensibility to this Roman subject, combining the mythological narrative with his characteristic warm palette and fluid figure style.

The legendary scene is set within a pastoral landscape rendered with Ricci's warm colors, the infant twins and their lupine nurse painted with the naturalistic detail that grounded his mythological subjects in physical reality.