Venus and Cupid (II)

Díaz signed and dated this little picture at the lower left, N. Diaz 47, for 1847. It is painted on paperboard, about 32 by 20 centimetres, later mounted on a wooden panel. In the same year he made a Venus and Two Cupids of almost exactly that size and on the same kind of support, and it now hangs in the National Gallery in London, where it came with the bequest of the Irish collector Hugh Lane. Here Venus sits naked against dark trees with a single Cupid.

This one had reached New York by 1888, when it was sold at auction from the collection of Albert Spencer under the title Cupid's Lesson, for 900 dollars. The next day the dealers Knoedler sold it on to a Boston buyer. It later belonged to Josiah Bradlee of Boston, whose bequest brought it to the museum in 1903. The museum owns another Venus and Cupid by Díaz, which it numbers I, and this one carries the II.