# Cupid Untying the Zone of Venus [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [REYNOLDS, Sir Joshua]() - Date: 1751-1800 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 128 x 101 cm ## Commentary Cupid Untying the Zone of Venus 1788 Oil on canvas, 128 x 101 cm The Hermitage, St. Petersburg Reynolds reproduced his earlier work A Nymph and Cupid \(Tate Gallery, London\) in this commission for Lord Carysfort. The title change is evidence that both paintings are variations on a mythological theme. \(Zone is an old-fashioned word for girdle.\) The model for the nymph-like Venus was likely the celebrated Emma hart, who was later the wife of Sir William Hamilton \(the British ambassador to Naples\) and mistress of Admiral Lord Nelson. <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 - [Admiral Sir Edward Hughes]() - [Captain Robert Orme]() - [Colonel George K. H. Coussmaker, Grenadier Guards]() - [Commodore Augustus Keppel]() - [Continence of Scipio]() - [Francis Rawdon-Hastings]() - [General Sir Banastre Tarleton]() - [George Clive and his Family with an Indian Maid]() - [Lady Cockburn and her Three Eldest Sons]() - [Lady Elizabeth Delmé and her Children]() - [Lady Sunderlin]() - [Master Hare]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()