Three Nereids

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The three figures are sea nymphs, daughters of the sea god Nereus, riding over the waves on sea creatures. They are thought to have escorted the soul of the deceased on its journey to the afterlife.” Apparently Filippo Buonarroti in 1698, while cataloguing artifacts, speculated that Nereids and Tritons in funeral art “represent the journey of the soul to the isles of the blessed.” It may be hard to tell in the photograph below, but each figure is balancing on the head of a dolphin or sea-monster being swept along the surface of the ‘wine dark’ sea.