The Funeral Procession of Love

A funeral is passing in front of a palace, and the body on the bier is Love himself. Small winged cupids in black hoods carry him along with banners, while Venus, his mother, crosses the sky above in a chariot. The procession winds toward a round temple on a hill, identified as a temple of Diana, the goddess of chastity.

What the scene means has never been settled. One reading sees the poets of the Pléiade, the circle around Pierre de Ronsard, mourning Love at the moment Ronsard turned from love poetry to verse on the civil wars. Another links it to the death in 1566 of Diane de Poitiers, the mistress of King Henry II. The hand is debated too. The Louvre gives the canvas to Antoine Caron and records a second attribution to Henri Lerambert, a Paris painter and tapestry designer. Its paint layer has been transferred to a new canvas twice.