Venus and Mercury

The ancient Roman gods Venus and Mercury rest in the shade beneath a group of trees, watching as Eros (the winged cupid) fights with Anteros (the satyr or goat-legged child) in the lower left corner. This painting represents the struggle between sacred love and sensual love, shown through the wrestling figures of Anteros (the god of requited love) and Eros (the god of desire).

The sensual nature of the picture, in its luscious rendering of pallid female and ruddy male flesh, is in character with many of Nicholas Poussin’s (1594-1665) early paintings, deeply influenced by sixteenth-century Venetian painting and by the art of Correggio (active 1494-1534). Originally a larger painting, this work was cut into two fragments around 1764 in France, possibly because of damage to the top part of the canvas or because of its erotic content. The second, smaller fragment is now in the Louvre, Paris.