Rubens, Peter Paul (1577-1640) Venus and Adonis probably mid-1630s Oil on canvas, 197.5 x 242.9 cm Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Rubens took the subject of this painting from the Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Accidently pricked by one of Cupid’s…
Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792) Cupid as Link Boy 1774 Oil on canvas, 76.2 x 63.5 cm Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo Joshua Reynolds’s portrait transforms a sight common to the streets of eighteenth-century London—a child worker lighting torches—into an allegory. “Link boys,”…
Caravaggio (1571-1610) Concerto di giovani (The Musicians) 1597 Oil on canvas, 92.1 x 118.4 cm Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York While Cupid confirms Caravaggio’s allegorical frame for representing Music, the artist equally engages with contemporary performance and individualized models, including…
Severini, Gino (1883-1966) Le coup de foudre (Love at first sight) 1928 Oil on canvas, 160 x 66 cm Pinacoteca di Brera, Milano
Allori, Alessandro (1535-1607) Venere e Cupido (Venus and Cupid) c.1575–1580 Oil on wood, 143 x 226.50 cm Musée Fabre, Montpellier The Mannerist painter Allori designed a complex representation of Venus which owes much to the powerful figures of Michelangelo. The…
Bronzino (1503-1572) Allegoria del trionfo di Venere (An Allegory with Venus and Cupid) c.1545 Oil on wood, 146.1 x 116.2 cm National Gallery, London This is one of Bronzino’s most complex and enigmatic paintings. It contains a tangle of moral…
Giorgione (c.1477-1510) Ragazzo con la freccia (Boy with an Arrow) c.1505 Oil on poplar, 48 × 41.8 × 2.6 cm Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna This bust of an idealized young man with a rich mane of curls and an arrow in…
Rembrandt (1606-1669) Venus and Cupid after 1660 Oil on canvas, 118 x 90 cm Musée du Louvre, Paris Former title: Hendrickje Stoffels as Venus For vague reasons of resemblance, the painting passes, a pure supposition of Bredius (1910), to represent…
Lairesse, Gérard de (1641-1711) Bacchus and Ariadne c.1680 Oil on canvas, 175.2 x 92.5 cm Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (on loan from Mauritshuis, The Hague) Ovid described the following scene in his Metamorphoses: on the island of Naxos, Bacchus, the god of wine, chances upon…
Lairesse, Gérard de (1641-1711) Mercury Ordering Calypso to Release Odysseus c.1680 Oil on canvas, 132 x 96 cm Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam During his wanderings, Odysseus encounters the nymph Calypso, who falls in love with him and holds him captive on her island.…