Neptune and Triton is an early sculpture by the Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini. It is housed in the Victoria and Albert Museum of London and was executed c. 1622–1623. Carved from marble, it stands 182.2 cm (71.7 in) in height. History The marble sculpture group was originally commissioned by Cardinal Alessandro Damascenti-Peretti Montalto in 1620, and executed March 1622 to February 1623, serving as a fountain to decorate the pond in the garden of his Villa Peretti Montalto on the Viminal Hill in Rome. The group was placed in the pre-existing oval pool (called the Peschiera or Peschierone), designed by Domenico Fontana in 1579–81. It was purchased by the Englishman Thomas Jenkins in 1786, from whom it was purchased later that year by the painter Joshua Reynolds. The work had been called "Neptune and Glaucus" following Filippo Baldinucci's biography of the artist, but appears as "Nettvno, e Tritone" in Domenico de' Rossi's engraving (1704), and also later corrected to "Neptune and Triton" following Reynolds' notes. After Reynolds's death in 1792 it was sold to Charles Anderson-Pelham, 1st Baron Yarborough, who kept it in the garden of his home in Chelsea, London, Walpole House. His descendants moved it in 1906 to their country house, Brocklesby Park, Lincolnshire. It was bought from the family by the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1950, although it had appeared at an exhibition at the Royal Academy in London in 1938. Literary reference The scene is thought to be making loose allusions to Neptune and Triton aiding Trojan ships as described, by Virgil, or Ovid or both, together with additional material. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Neptune bids Triton to blow his shell to calm the waves, In Virgil's Aeneid, Neptune calms the waves and afterwards, the nereid Cymothoe and Triton dislodge Aeneas's ships, helped in the effort by Neptune using the trident. But neither passages precisely match and the artist must have patched together a version using other sources. Iconography The composition of Bernini's Neptune and Triton consists of Neptune standing astride over Triton; Triton lies in sort of a "crouching" position; the two figures mounted on a large half-shell, which serves as socle. Neptune aims his trident seawards, while Triton is blowing his conch. The conch was designed to spurt out gushing water, in order that the sculpture could serve as a fountain. The posture of Neptune's stance, the filling-in of the reverse-V-shaped negative space