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Guido Reni`s painting shows a young Cupid facing the viewer, with the seashore behind him, his left leg bent and left foot resting on a slab of stone. Cupid raises his left hand to a dove and with his right hand holds his bow. The loosened bowstring indicates that he has been disarmed; his remaining arrows lie in a quiver discarded on the ground. The subject appears to be a variation of Love tamed
Venus, the Roman goddess of Love and Beauty, is accidentally wounded by one of her son Cupid´s arrows, which triggers her passion for Adonis. This love story ends with the tragic death of the hero. The scene is based on book X of Ovid´s Metamorphoses, one of the most important sources of mythology for artists of that time. The composition and pictorial technique in this work are a fine
As he is painted here, Eros is mischievous. Praxiteles, as far as we know, first represented him in a sculpture, around 370-60 BCE; he showed him nude in his sleep, and another time standing, with a bow in his left hand. Lysippos also represented him standing, preparing his bow. It was the great Euripides, in the fifth century BCE, who first mentioned Eros’s bow in Iphigenia at Aulis: "[Eros] gold
Esta representación del dios del amor niño no se corresponde con ninguna historia concreta, más allá de la propia representación del mismo. Hijo de Venus, a la que causa bastantes problemas con sus flechas, su presencia en la Torre de la Parada es constante, pero no de una manera pictórica sino por ser el causante de muchos de los episodios que aparecen en la Torre, como El Rapto de Proserpina (P1
A young male spirit symbolizing Virtue sits at the foot of an oak tree wearing a laurel crown. He looks to the heavens offering the crown he obtained after his victory over Earthly Love. Conquered and stripped of his weapons —they lie on the ground— the latter is tied to a tree. Madrazo made this work during his stay in Rome, influenced by a subject with clear antecedents in Renaissance painting a
As Homer tells it in The Iliad, Paris the shepherd, son of Priam, had to decide with of the three goddesses —Juno, Venus or Minerva— was the most beautiful, and give her the golden apple Mercury he had received from Mercury. On the left, Paris appears to be meditating, with the apple still in his hands. His attention is focused on Venus, in the middle of the composition. Minerva´s weapons are visi
This set of paintings on the five senses was one of the most successful collaborations of Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel “the Elder”. Rubens placed his figures in the magnificent courtly scenes created by Brueghel as settings for these allegories of the senses, resulting in a series of enormous quality and esthetic appeal. The subject was widely employed in Flemish painting. Sight was consider
This set of paintings on the five senses (Sight, Hearing, Smell, Taste, Touch) was one of the most successful collaborations of Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel “the Elder”. Rubens placed his figures in the magnificent courtly scenes created by Brueghel as settings for these allegories of the senses, resulting in a series of enormous quality and esthetic appeal. The subject was widely employed i
Rape of Europa is a faithful copy made by Peter Paul Rubens in Madrid after an original by Titian. It shows the Phoenician princess Europa after she was abducted by Zeus, who had taken on the form of a white bull. The fearful princess, barely holding on to one of the bull´s horns, was taken to Crete, where she bore Minos. The story was told by several ancient sources, among them Ovid (43 BCE-CE 17
The Graces were minor deities but in this splendid work Peter Paul Rubens devotes his best effort to them. The three goddesses embrace each other forming a circle. The positioning of their feet suggests movement; they seem to dance gently. The setting is as luscious as the nude bodies of the goddesses. A field illuminated by sunlight filtered through dense trees stretches to a distant blue. The sh
The mythological story of the Judgment of Paris begins with the wedding of Thetis and Peleus, where Eris, goddess of Discord, challenged the most beautiful goddesses to take a golden apple which she threw among the guests. Juno, Minerva and Venus started to argue and Jupiter decided to give the apple to Mercury and let Paris be the judge of this dispute. This judgment is told by the Roman poet Ovi
Apollo fights the terrible Python to free beautiful Andromeda, who was destined to be one of the victims of this monster. She is sketched in behind the beast. In the air, Cupid shoots his arrows into the God, alluding to the love arising between Apollo and Andromeda, as told by Ovid in his Metamorphoses. This sketch was made as part of the projected decoration of the Torre de la Parada and was use
As punishment for the vanity of Cassiopeia, who thought herself more beautiful than the Neriads, Poseidon, god of the seas, sent a monster to the kingdom of Ethiopia. Its fury could only be detained if it received Cassiopeia´s daughter, Andromeda. This painting illustrates the moment when Perseus frees Andromeda from her bounds. He is in love with her, as is made clear by the presence of Cupid wit
Titian painted five images of Venus and music, but those five variations on a single theme were not made for the same client, nor intended to be exhibited together. Set in a villa, they show Venus reclining before a large window. At her feet, an organist (in the versions at the Museo del Prado and the Staatliche Museen in Berlin) or a lutenist (at the Metropolitan Museum of New York and the Fitzwi
The first Poesie presented to Prince Philip were Danaë (1553, The Wellington Collection) and Venus and Adonis (1554), versions of other previous works, but endowed with all the prestige of the commissioning party. In turn, these works became models for numerous replicas.Titian painted the first Venus and Adonis, which was lost but is known from the copies that were made of it, at the end of t
This gallant scene in French Rococo style is adapted to Spanish tastes, with the characters dressed in the traditional Madrid fashion as majos and majas. In front of a fountain of Venus and Cupid, two ladies converse, while a third is approached by a majo. The bow and quiver with arrows allude to the darts of love that, according to classical mythology, Cupid would shoot. At the left of the compos
This allegorical work, signed on the column lying on the ground in the centre of the composition, shows two women in Roman garb sitting on clouds. Representing Justice and Peace, they embrace and seem about to kiss each other. This pictorial motif could be used to express political peace or, as is the case here, to allude to the peaceful policies that characterised the reign of Ferdinand VI, for w
This is a sketch of the fresco that Corrado Giaquinto painted in the former stairway at the Madrid’s Royal Palace, which is now the Hall of Columns. That fresco, his last work at the Royal Palace, is undoubtedly one of the finest paintings from Giaquinto’s Spanish period.He concluded it in 1762, so the sketch presented here must have been made slightly earlier. At the top is the figure of Apollo,
