Vénus et Adonis

Rubens painted this soon after coming home to Antwerp from eight years in Italy, around 1614, already running the busiest studio in northern Europe. The moment is from Ovid: Venus, goddess of love, clings to the young hunter Adonis and begs him not to go out after the boar. He goes anyway, and the boar will kill him. Little Cupid, tugging at his leg, is the last soft warning he ignores. Rubens had filled his eyes with Titian and ancient sculpture in Italy, and you can feel it in the warm, heavy flesh and the twisting embrace. The canvas later entered the imperial collection in Saint Petersburg and hangs today in the Hermitage.