Венера и Адонис

Titian painted this scene again and again for wealthy patrons, and this version, from around 1560, is one of several his workshop produced. The story comes from Ovid. Venus, goddess of love, clings to the young hunter Adonis, trying to hold him back from the chase, because she knows what he does not, that a wild boar will kill him before the day is out. Titian catches the exact hinge of it, Adonis straining forward with his dogs while Venus twists to keep him. The first of these pictures went to Prince Philip of Spain, soon to be Philip the Second, as one of a set of mythological poesie, painted poems that Titian composed for him straight out of the ancient writers.