Vénus et Cupidon

Lambert Sustris was a Netherlander who went south and made his life in Venice, working inside the busy workshop of Titian, the most sought-after painter in Europe. Around 1550 that connection paid off. This reclining Venus, with Cupid beside her, was very likely commissioned by one of the Fuggers, the German banking family from Augsburg whose money reached into every court on the continent, and Titian himself had worked for them. Sustris borrows his master's warm flesh and golden light, but the cool, silvery landscape opening up behind the figure is his own northern eye. More than a century later the painting had drifted into the collection of Louis XIV, which is how it comes to hang in the Louvre today.