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Artwork Page for Venus Discovering the Dead Adonis

Details / Information for Venus Discovering the Dead Adonis

Venus Discovering the Dead Adonis

c. 1650
oil on canvas
Framed: 213.5 x 268.7 x 8 cm (84 1/16 x 105 13/16 x 3 1/8 in.); Unframed: 184.4 x 238.8 cm (72 5/8 x 94 in.)
Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund 1965.19
Location: not on view
Public Domain
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At left, two putti use a rope to restrain the boar that has just killed Adonis.

Description

Venus, the goddess of love, urged her mortal lover Adonis to hunt only the easiest game. Yet he insisted on pursuing boar, which eventually gored him to death. In this scene, Venus discovers the young man robbed of his youth, yet the painting eternally preserves him in a state of perfection. This paradox corresponds to wordplay in Italian poetry from the 1600s, with which many artists sought visual parallels in their work. This painting derives from a 1623 poem by Giovanni Battista Marino. The painter remains unknown, although the sophisticated literary reference, dramatic use of light, and vivid use of color demonstrate the artist’s awareness of trends converging in Naples in the mid-1600s.
Oil painting against a dark sky of Venus, a goddess with light skin tone leaning over the corpse of Adonis, a man with a pasty, light skin tone, a single flower falling from Venus towards his body. Adonis lays upside down from our angle on a red cloth, arms spread straight, and a gash on his bare chest. Venus steps forward, arms thrown in the air and muted yellow and blue clothes covering her left breast. Child-like putti and animals surround them.

Venus Discovering the Dead Adonis

c. 1650

Italy, Naples

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