クピドと犬のいるマルスとウェヌス

Titian, the giant of Venetian painting, died in the plague of 1576, and by the time Veronese painted this a few years later he was the leading painter left in the city. You can see why Venice loved him. Venus sits wrapped in shining fabric on the knee of Mars, the god of war, while she quiets her son Cupid, who has been startled by a lively little spaniel at their feet. Look closely at Cupid's wings, barely sketched in, and at Mars himself, whom scholars suspect was added late, perhaps by an assistant. Only Venus and Cupid appear in the surviving preparatory drawings, which hints that the picture may never have been fully finished.