An Allegory with Venus and Time

By the 1750s Venice was a republic in slow decline, its oldest patrician families holding less power each year but still rich enough to hire the best painter alive. When a Contarini heir was born, the family handed Tiepolo an entire ceiling. He filled it with Venus leaning down out of the clouds to present the naked infant to Time, an old winged man who has set his scythe aside, as if promising the boy will outlast the hours. The hourglass at Time's waist keeps running anyway. Overhead the Three Graces scatter flowers to bless the child. All of it was painted to be read from directly below, the goddess sharply foreshortened as she lowers the baby toward you. The oval hangs flat on a wall now, in London, so we take from the side a scene that was built to be looked up into.