''Venus and Cupid'' is an oil-on-canvas painting by the Italian Renaissance artist

Lorenzo Lotto Lorenzo Lotto (c. 1480 – 1556/57) was an Italian painter, draughtsman, and illustrator, traditionally placed in the Venetian school, though much of his career was spent in other north Italian cities. He painted mainly altarpieces, religiou ...

in the collection of the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

. It probably dates to ''c.'' 1530, but has been dated from the mid 1520s to as late as the 1540s. It is a wedding gift for a couple of Bergamo or

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...

. Such paintings were inspired by the classical tradition of wedding poetry.

Description

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never f ...

, lying on the ground and leaning on an elbow on a blue cloth, is accompanied by her son Cupid standing with his bow and quiver. He urinates on the bride through a crown of laurels of myrtle which she holds by a ribbon and below which is suspended a burning incense burner. This urine stream is a symbolic act, the meaning of which is to bring fertility, and which would have seemed humorous to contemporary viewers. A red cloth tied to a tree provides a background, and ivy climbs on the tree. Around Venus and Cupid are scattered allegorical objects of marriage (garland of myrtle), femininity (rose, seashell, rose petals), eternal love (ivy). The headdress of Venus, with the tiara, the veil and the earring, is typical of the Venetian brides of the sixteenth century. The pendant earring with a pearl is a symbol of purity. The gesture of Cupid urinating through the crown onto the belly of Venus is an allusion to fertility. The figure of a prepubescent boy in the act of urinating is a classical art motif known as a

puer mingens A puer mingēns (; plural puerī mingentēs ) is a figure in a work of art depicted as a prepubescent boy in the act of urinating, either actual or simulated. The puer mingens could represent anything from whimsy and boyish innocence to erotic sym ...

, which was revived during the Renaissance. The painting is Lotto's typically individual contribution to the emerging Venetian tradition of the recling nude, begun by the ''

Dresden Venus Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the Germany, German States of Germany, state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the List ...

'' by

Giorgione Giorgione (, , ; born Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco; 1477–78 or 1473–74 – 17 September 1510) was an Italian painter of the Venetian school during the High Renaissance, who died in his thirties. He is known for the elusive poetic quali ...

and

Titian Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italian (Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, nea ...

. The goddess shows no discomfort with her nakedness and looks at the spectator in the eye. In front of her are a stick and a snake. The goddess seems to bless the marrying couple, wishing them fertility, and preserving them from hidden dangers like the serpent.

History

This painting is not recorded until an image of it was published in the ''Directory of paintings of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance'' by

Salomon Reinach Salomon Reinach (29 August 1858 – 4 November 1932) was a French archaeologist, religious historian and was a major figure in the Franco-Jewish establishment in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He was vice president of the mo ...

in 1918, as being with a French dealer in 1912. In 1986 it was acquired by the

. Before the purchase, the painting was cleaned at the Metropolitan, notably to remove an old overpainting that extended the headdress of Venus to drape onto her right thigh.

Reference

Sources

* Roberta D'Adda, ''Lotto'', Milan, Skira, coll. « SkiraMiniArtBooks », 2010, 96 p. ( )

External links

* http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436918 {{Lorenzo Lotto Paintings by Lorenzo Lotto Paintings in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Paintings of Venus Paintings of Cupid Seashells in art Snakes in art