Vénus et Adonis

Titian returned to this scene again and again, and versions of it now hang in several museums. It comes from Ovid: the goddess Venus, in love with the young hunter Adonis, clings to him at dawn to keep him from the chase, not knowing a wild boar will kill him that day. Titian gives her an awkward, powerful pose seen from behind, her body twisting to hold him as he pulls away with his hounds. He first devised the composition around 1550 as one of a set of mythological paintings he called poesie, made for Prince Philip, soon king of Spain. The small detail that fixes the tragedy is easy to miss. Cupid lies asleep under a tree at the left, his bow set aside, love already off its guard.