Artwork Information

Venus fell hopelessly in love with the beautiful Adonis after she accidentally grazed herself on Cupid’s arrow. In this scene, she tries in vain to stop him going hunting while Cupid sleeps in the background, symbolising Adonis’s refusal to be constrained. In the myth he is later gored to death by a wild boar, in spite of the goddess’s attempts to save him. As his blood soaked into the earth, anemones sprouted in its place.

Titian explained the unusual pose of Venus in a letter to his patron Phillip II of Spain, saying he wanted to depict the body from both sides.

(Venus Rising, 2005)