Venus con un sátiro y cupidos

Carracci painted this young Venus around 1588, just after a spell in Venice whose warm colour and soft flesh you can feel all over it. A satyr lifts a cloth to look at the sleeping goddess while two cupids play close by. It was already famous in the 1600s, but taste hardened. For much of the 18th century the Uffizi kept it hidden, a second, more respectable canvas fixed over the top to spare visitors the nudity. Only in 1812 was that cover removed and the real picture brought back into view. The pose of Venus seems borrowed from a nymph in a Titian that Carracci would have studied on that Venetian trip.