Diana, Apollo and Nymphs

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770) depicts Diana, the ancient Greek goddess of the hunt and the moon, alongside her brother, Apollo, the god of the sun. Both figures are identifiable through the symbols and objects with which Tiepolo has depicted them. Diana is surrounded by deer and hunting dogs and just above her head is a small crescent moon on its side. Apollo holds a stringed musical instrument called a lyre.  

This painting is a modello (a painted sketch), for a ceiling fresco at the Villa Cornaro in Merlengo, a village in the Veneto region of northern Italy. This modello would have been shown to the patron, a member of the Cornaro family, before Tiepolo started work on the ceiling.