Venus and Adonis

The scene comes from Ovid. Venus has fallen for the beautiful young hunter Adonis, and she is trying to keep him from the hunt she dreads, because she already knows how it ends. He will go anyway, a wild boar will gore him, and he will die in her arms. Jacopo Amigoni painted it around 1740 in the light, sweetened manner of Venetian Rococo, all soft flesh and easy grace, the goddess leaning in, the dogs already straining to be gone. Amigoni spent his life on the move, working for courts in Germany, England and finally Spain, and he returned to this particular story more than once over the years. This small canvas surfaced in Milan and was bought for the gallery in 1910.