Venus, Cupid and a Satyr

On a stay in Rome in the early 1620s, the young Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck sketched this canvas and wrote Titian's name beside it. It already belonged to the Borghese, perhaps since 1608, when a group of pictures was bought from Cardinal Paolo Emilio Sfondrato. The family inventory of 1693 called it a Veronese. The museum now sees it as a later derivation from a lost design by the Venetian master, once owned by a collector in Padua, and gives it, with a question mark, to Alessandro Varotari, known as Padovanino, or to his circle. Venus sits half draped, an arrow in her hand and two white doves beside her, while Cupid presses against her shoulder with his bow. Behind them a dark satyr heaves a basket of fruit over his head, the figure that ties this canvas to the lost original.