Venus and Cupid

With this amazing work by the Baroque star Artemisia Gentileschi, we start our special month with the collection of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Enjoy!  : ))))

Artemisia Gentileschi, who trained in Rome with her father, Orazio, was the leading female artist of the 17th century. She worked mainly in Rome, Florence, and Naples. In 1616, she became the first female member of Florence’s noted Academy of Painting.

Gentileschi’s work, which is marked by the strong contrasts of light and dark as well as unusual, bold compositions, was influenced both by her father’s painting style and that of his famous associate, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. Her subject matter often consists of powerfully rendered portrayals of women, such as Judith, Susanna, Cleopatra, and Danäe, dramatically depicted either as heroines or victims.

In this work, however, Gentileschi has created a sumptuous image of Venus, the Goddess of Love, asleep under a velvet hanging. Her bedcover is painted with ultramarine, an expensive pigment made from powdered lapis lazuli. Behind her, Cupid wields a peacock-feather fan to keep pests from annoying or waking her. At the left is a view of a mountainous landscape with a small circular temple, reminiscent of the one dedicated to Venus near Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli, just outside of Rome.

P.S. Artemisia is also the star of our Women Artists Notebooks. Check them out here!  Also, here you can read more about Artemisia Gentileschi's unusual story!