Spring is here. “Spring it is that clothes the glades and forests with leaves ... and the meadows ungirdle to Zephyrus’s [the West Wind’s] balmy breeze; the tender moisture avails for all,” wrote the ancient Roman poet Virgil in his “Georgics.”
For centuries, artists have depicted mythological themes, such as Zephyrus, god of the west winds, and his wife Flora, in frescoes, paintings, sculptures, tapestries, furniture, and even snuffboxes.Ancient Pompeii artists frescoed the couple’s wedding. In the Renaissance, Sandro Botticelli (circa 1445–1510) captured Zephyrus’s balmy breeze along with more than 138 plants in his tempera painting “Primavera.” One of the last masterpieces that the Sun King, Louis XIV (1638–1715), commissioned was the dynamic marble sculpture “Zephyr, Flora, and Love” by Philippe Bertrand, René Frémin, and Jacques Bousseau.
