On-line gallery
- Reference number
- P00482
- Author
- Veronese, Paolo (Italian)
- Title
- Venus and Adonis
- Chronology
- Ca. 1580
- Technique
- Support
- Measures
- 162 cm x 191 cm
- School
- Theme
- Shown
- Yes
- Entrance
- COLECCIONREAL
- Procedence
- Royal Collection
Venus fans Adonis, who rests on her
knees, while she watches Cupid
embrace a dog. This work was
conceived as a pair to Cephalus and
Procris (Strasburg Museum), and
both illustrate passages from
Ovid's Metamorphosis. The present
work is drawn from Book X, which is
dedicated to love truncated by the
sudden and fortuitous death of one
of the lovers.
The painting depicts the lovers'
last moment of happiness before
Adonis dies, gored by a wild boar.
Veronese opted to portray the
psychology of love, visible in the
shadowed face of Venus, who knew
what her beloved's fate would be.
The artist may have been in Rome
shortly before he painted this
work. as the figure of Cupid is
inspired by the Hellenistic
sculpture Boy with a Goose, and
that of Adonis, by the Endymion on
a sepulcher at the Roman Basilica
of Saint John of Letran.
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