비너스의 띠를 푸는 큐피드

Reynolds made this version in 1788, and it came to Russia as a gift. The English lord who owned his first picture of the subject asked Reynolds to paint it again, this time as a present for Prince Grigory Potemkin, Catherine the Great's favourite, which is how it reached the Hermitage. The woman posing as Venus was Emma Hart, then the mistress of the collector Sir William Hamilton in Naples and a celebrated beauty of the age. Ten years later she would become famous across Europe as Lady Hamilton, mistress of Admiral Nelson. Here Cupid tugs at the end of the blue ribbon, the zone or girdle, that circles her waist, while she turns her face away from us. So a private English commission, painted twice, ended up in a Russian palace carrying the likeness of a woman about to become one of the most talked-about people in Europe.