Venus Abandoned

Around 1850 Böcklin made his first journey to Italy, and classical figures began to drift into work that until then had been pure landscape. This Venus dates from those early years, though not precisely. It is usually placed simply in the 1850s. She is the goddess of love shown alone and unattended, the 'abandoned' of the title. It is a small, private picture by a painter still teaching himself the mythological world of his Italian decades. The tritons, nymphs and forest gods that crowd his later canvases are not here yet. This is one of the first times he set a classical goddess down entirely on her own.