The Birth of Venus

About this artwork

Marco Dente was one of several printmakers who re-created Raphael’s designs as engravings. Both of Dente’s compositions after Raphael relate to the latter’s frescos in the stufetta, or bathroom, of Cardinal Bernardo Dovizi da Bibbiena’s apartments in the Vatican Palace. A scholar of classical antiquity and a patron of the arts, the Cardinal personally chose these mildly erotic female nudes, a common subject in bathroom decorations, even for members of the clergy. Depicted here is Venus, the godd...