This is a peculiar, fantastical subject and appears to be a kind of marine ‘Charity’. A young mermaid in a billowing olive-green robe has seven children gathered in her arms. She is feeding them from her five breasts, and their fish-tails are interlaced. The composition may be been informed by nereids feeding tritonettes, which Giulio might have seen in Pinturicchio’s decorations in the Palazzo dei Penitenzieri in Rome. The mother may be Tethys, wife of Oceanus. There is an unpublished preparatory drawing for this work in the Louvre, which has the quality of a modello. The group is incorporated into a larger marine composition in a drawing attributed to Paolo Farinati in the Schloss Fachsenfeld Collection. The painting was acquired by Charles I and was hung in the Kings Breakfast Chamber at Whitehall alone with Van Dyck’s portrait-group of the King’s five children.