Der entwaffnete Amor

The year is around 1715, and in France an era is ending. Louis XIV, who had reigned for 72 years, dies that September, and the heavy ceremonial taste of his court begins to give way to something lighter and more private. Watteau's small mythologies belong to that shift. Here Venus has taken the bow from her son Cupid and holds it out of reach while he strains to get it back, a bit of erotic teasing dressed as myth. The picture is usually given to Watteau, though a few scholars have doubted the hand. He was already ill with the tuberculosis that would kill him in 1721, at 36, and worked fast and small. The paint is thin and quick, more sketch than polish.