Venus Discovering the Dead Adonis
Unknown Artist
c. 1650
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
unframed: 184.4 × 238.8 cm · framed: 213.5 × 268.7 × 8 cm
Classification
Painting
Department
European Painting and Sculpture
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund
Accession Number
1965.19
About this artwork
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 p...