# Vulcan Surprising Venus and Mars in Bed before an Assembly of the Gods [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [HEISS, Johann]() - Date: 1651-1700 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 135 x 197 cm ## Commentary The scene represented in this painting is described both in the Odyssey \(VIII: 166-365\) and in Ovid's Metamorphoses \(IV: 171-189\). The god Helios, spying Venus and Mars secretly in bed together, informed the god Vulcan of his wife's faithlessness. In order to catch the lovers in an act of infidelity, Vulcan forged a net of bronze so fine that it was invisible to the naked eye. This he placed over his wife's couch so as to entrap her with Mars at their next tryst. Sure enough, they were thus ensnared, and Vulcan called upon all of the other Olympians to witness in his favour. Heiss has chosen this most dramatic moment to represent the cuckolded god as he makes his case before his peers. ## Related artworks - [Allegory of Winter]() - [The Continence of Scipio]() - [The Holy Kinship]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()