Venus and Adonis

Painted in the early 1580s by Paolo Veronese, Venus and Adonis belongs to the group of mythological subjects he developed after a period in Rome. Its source is Ovid's Metamorphoses. The young hunter Adonis sleeps in Venus's lap while she cradles him and fans him gently. Before them, Cupid holds back a sighthound that strains to join a hunt. The most common reading is that the boy restrains the dog so it will not wake Adonis, since the goddess senses that he will die on one of his hunting expeditions and tries to keep him at her side. A second dog sleeps on the ground.

The composition is carefully built. Adonis is shown foreshortened, dressed in red garments that set off the pale skin of Venus, who is lit more brightly than he is, sitting partly in shadow. The figures stand out against a lush landscape of dark greens and blues that adds depth without competing with the bodies. Veronese also chose a low viewpoint that makes the viewer look upward, and for this reason it has been suggested that the picture may have been designed to hang high on a wall.

The painting was probably made as a companion to Cephalus and Procris, another tragic couple from the Metamorphoses, now in the Museum of Fine Arts in Strasbourg. Veronese is also thought to have based Cupid on a Hellenistic sculpture of a boy with a goose, while the figure of Adonis may draw on a relief from a Roman sarcophagus.

The work entered the Spanish royal collection. It was probably acquired by Velázquez in Italy for Philip IV, although the exact date of the purchase is uncertain. Today it hangs in the Museo del Prado in Madrid. A restoration in 1988 removed 18th-century additions that had enlarged the sky and altered the painting's proportions, returning it to its original horizontal format.

Painter

Paolo Veronese

Date

1580

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

162 × 191 cm

Museum

Museo del Prado, Madrid

Movement

Mannerism, Venetian school

Genre

mythological painting

Depicts

landscape, sitting, Eros, chignon, sandal, dog, pearl necklace, Adonis

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