(Venice 1579–1620)
Venus and Cupid,
oil on copper, 10 x 16 cm, framed

We are grateful to Francesca Cappelletti for suggesting the attribution of the present painting.

Set in a wooded landscape the goddess Venus, nude and seen from behind, turns and gazes out at the viewer; at the centre of the scene Cupid holds a basket full of roses on his head, while in the distance various figures play music and dance.

The composition derives from a prototype by Adam Elsheimer (1578–1610) of which two versions are known: one in the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Vienna and another, now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, which is also the source for the engraving by Wenceslaus Hollar. As compared to the latter, the present painting reveals some variants, especially in the background figures, therefore suggesting that this work was executed in the presence of the original. Elsheimer was born in Frankfurt am Main; after travelling to Venice he reached Rome settling there in 1600, here he mostly executed small format landscape paintings, mostly on copper. His paintings exerted a strong influence on the Venetian Carlo Saraceni who had moved to the Rome in the 1590s.

The present painting appears to be from Saraceni’s production between the years 1605 and 1610, both on account of its use of a copper support, and for small devotional paintings; as well as for its stylistic type as one of those ‘paesi con piccole figure’ [‘landscapes with little figures’], which are frequently recorded in inventories. It was almost certainly conceived as the pair to another small painting on copper representing Diana and Callisto (see lot 210) and it is possible that both paintings once former part of a larger series of mythological paintings, such as the celebrated group of small paintings now in the Museo di Capodimonte that represent Landscapes with stories from the Metamorphoses of Ovid executed by Saraceni during the first decade of the seventeenth century.