Bacchus, Venus and Cupid

This oil-on-canvas painting, dated around 1531-1532 and attributed to the Italian Mannerist painter Rosso Fiorentino, shows Bacchus, Venus and Cupid, figures from classical mythology linked to wine, love and the nude. Its main interest lies in the artist's connection with his stay in France, where he arrived in 1530 to work at the court of Francis I, at the Fontainebleau Palace. Vasari described two mythological paintings made for the king, one of them a Bacchus and Venus, and it has been suggested that the canvas now in Luxembourg may be that work. The identification remains tentative: its fair-to-moderate condition makes it impossible to attribute it directly to Fiorentino or to any of his Fontainebleau collaborators. Even so, the theory that it is an autograph work by the master has been taken up and developed, making it a useful reference point for understanding his French output and Mannerist taste at Francis I's court.

Painter

Rosso Fiorentino

Date

1531

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

210 × 162 cm

Museum

National Museum of Archeology, History and Art, Luxembourg

Genre

mythological painting, nude

Depicts

Dionysus, Venus, Bacchus

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