Allegory (Mars, Venus, Victoria and Cupid)

The Kunsthistorisches Museum reads this picture as an allegory of marriage. A man and a woman appear in the roles of Mars, the god of war, and Venus, and two figures bring them gifts. One is winged, perhaps Victory, the other is the little love god Cupid, and what they offer are myrtle and roses, the plants of Venus and of weddings. Paris Bordone painted it around 1560 with a companion piece, which is also in the museum. There Mars and Venus appear again, this time with Flora, the goddess of flowers, and the museum describes that one as a gently ironic picture of a love strong enough to master even the god of war. The two may have stayed together for a very long time. The Hungarian art historian Klára Garas suggested in 1987 that Archduke Leopold Wilhelm bought both in 1643 from the Staininger collection in Augsburg. They are almost exactly the same size, a little over a metre high and 176 centimetres wide, as a pair meant to hang side by side would be.