Vulcano entregando a Venus las armas para Eneas

In May 1757 Louis XV approved a set of four tapestries on the loves of the gods, to be woven at the royal Gobelins works, and handed one design each to four leading painters. Boucher's was this. It is not really an easel picture but a full-size cartoon, the model the weavers would copy thread by thread, which is why it is a great square more than three metres on each side. The scene comes from Virgil. Vulcan, the smith of the gods, kneels to hand Venus the armour he has forged for her son Aeneas, all rose flesh and drifting cloud. France was in the second year of the Seven Years' War when Boucher painted it, though nothing of that reaches this warm, unhurried Olympus. He showed it at the Salon that same year, 1757.