Venus and Adonis
Artist: Workshop of Titian (Italian, 1490 - 1576)
Original Dimensions: 70" x 74 3/8"
Location: National Gallery of Art, London
About Artwork: (About 1554) "Naked Venus, the goddess of love, throws her arms around handsome young Adonis to stop him from going out to hunt. The story is told in Book 10 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Venus falls in love with the youth Adonis when Cupid accidentally wounds her with one of his arrows. She goes hunting with Adonis but tells him not to pursue the fiercer prey (wolves, bears, lions and boars). One morning when Venus sets out in her sky-borne chariot, Adonis’s hounds rouse a wild boar, which turns on him. Venus hears Adonis’s groans, leaps from her chariot and finds him dying. From her lover’s blood she creates a fragile flower whose petals are scattered in the wind, named anemone (‘wind flower’ in Greek). This picture is one of many versions of the subject painted by Titian and his studio. The most famous was delivered in 1554 to Prince Philip, later King Philip II of Spain, and is now in the Museo del Prado, Madrid. The National Gallery’s canvas was probably painted by an artist in Titian’s workshop, following his by then established design." - (National Gallery of Art, London)

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