Venus in a Landscape

In the autumn of 1806 Napoleon's armies defeated Prussia, and Vivant Denon, who ran the Louvre, then called the Musée Napoléon, followed them into Germany to choose paintings for Paris. This small Venus was taken in that campaign. The old inventory says only "conquest of 1806" and names no earlier owner, and Denon's wax seal is still on the back of the panel. In 1815, after Napoleon's fall, German commissioners came to Paris to reclaim what had been removed, and they did not ask for this one. Cranach dated it 1529. She stands on a stony path in a red hat, a jewelled collar and a veil so fine it barely shows. Look among the pebbles near her feet. His emblem, a winged serpent with a ring in its mouth, is painted to pass for one more stone.