# Venus at Vulcan's Forge

[View the canonical artwork record](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/gandolfi-gaetano-rfb5424f4582207/venus-at-vulcans-forge-r2a1307c0ed6f6b>)

## Artwork

- Artist: [GANDOLFI, Gaetano](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/gandolfi-gaetano-rfb5424f4582207>)
- Date: 1751-1800
- Technique: Oil on canvas, 52 x 34 cm

## Commentary

This painting, depicting Venus ordering armour for Aeneas at Vulcan&#39;s forge, is a bozzetto, a preparatory sketch for the painting now in the Detroit Institute of Arts. The subject of the bozzetto comes from Virgil&#39;s Aeneid \(8:370-385\), in which the poet recounts how Venus visits Vulcan to ask him to make a set of armour for her son, the Trojan hero Aeneas, who was about to go to war in Latium.

## Related artworks

- [Joseph&#39;s Dream](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/gandolfi-gaetano-rfb5424f4582207/josephs-dream-r0c29441b9e6bf9>)
- [Portrait of a Young Man](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/gandolfi-gaetano-rfb5424f4582207/portrait-of-a-young-man-r14f23d28874337>)
- [Portrait of a Young Woman](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/gandolfi-gaetano-rfb5424f4582207/portrait-of-a-young-woman-r12137429e31eb2>)
- [St Giustina and the Guardian Angel Commending the Soul of an Infant to the Madonna and Child](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/gandolfi-gaetano-rfb5424f4582207/st-giustina-and-the-guardian-angel-commending-the-soul-of-an-infant-to-the-madonna-and-child-r0bfffe9b707dea>)
- [Study of a Bearded Man](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/gandolfi-gaetano-rfb5424f4582207/study-of-a-bearded-man-rd6bf41a6dde01e>)
- [The Agony of Christ](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/gandolfi-gaetano-rfb5424f4582207/the-agony-of-christ-r07c5953cb901ff>)
- [The Holy Family](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/gandolfi-gaetano-rfb5424f4582207/the-holy-family-r9f669d84bf1488>)
- [The Holy Family](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/gandolfi-gaetano-rfb5424f4582207/the-holy-family-rf1104f4afae3f7>)

## Attribution

[Web Gallery of Art](<https://beta.wga.hu/pages/about>)