# Venus and Cupid [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [LOTTO, Lorenzo]() - Date: 1501-1550 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 92 x 111 cm ## Commentary Venus and Cupid c. 1540 Oil on canvas, 92 x 111 cm Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Of the countless Renaissance paintings of Venus and Cupid, few are as beautiful - and certainly none is quite so startling - as this humorous wedding picture. It is an allegory in which the goddess of love, surrounded by symbols of fertility and conjugal fidelity, blesses a marriage. With her right hand Venus raises a myrtle wreath through which Cupid urinates, with evident delight, onto her lap. His action may seem ludicrous to us today, but for Lotto's contemporaries a urinating child was an augury of good fortune. It has been suggested that the picture was painted in 1540 for Lotto's cousin, but an earlier date is also possible. Venus may be a portrait of the bride. <P> <TABLE ALIGN=LEFT CELLPADDING=5 BORDER=1 WIDTH=320 BGCOLOR="\#99CCCC"> <TR VALIGN=MIDDLE><TD><IMG SRC="/support/gif/listen.gif" BORDER=0 VALIGN=MIDDLE> Suggested listening \(streaming mp3, 4 minutes\):<BR><A HREF="\#" onClick="w=window.open \('/music1/17\_cent/gasparini\_cupid.html', 'newWin', 'scrollbars=yes,status=no,dependent=yes,screenX=0,screenY=0,width=350,height=350'\);w.opener=this;w.focus\(\);return true"><B>Francesco Gasparini: The Meddlesome Cupid, aria</B></A> </TD></TR></TABLE> ## Related artworks - [Adoration of the Shepherds]() - [Allegory of Chastity detail\)]() - [Allegory of Chastity \("Maiden's Dream"\)]() - [Allegory of Virtue and Vice \(detail\)]() - [Allegory of Virtue and Vice]() - [Angel Annunciating]() - [Angel of the Annunciation]() - [Annunciation \(detail\)]() - [Annunciation \(detail\)]() - [Annunciation]() - [Architect]() - [Assumption of the Virgin]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()