# The Venetian Lovers [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [BORDONE, Paris]() - Date: 1501-1550 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 81 x 86 cm ## Commentary One of Bordone's most celebrated works, this painting represents a favourite subject of early sixteenth-century Venetian art. Its Giorgionesque reminiscences, here reduced to a sort of bourgeois languor, date it around 1525-30. Yet it also shows a Mannerist restlessness that relates it to contemporary work by Palma il Vecchio. The scene is one of venal love \(note the pallor of the man embracing the woman\). Although the mysterious third figure with the swaggering air may portray a procurer, his artist's beret suggests that it may be a self-portrait. In that case the meaning of the work would be allegorical rather than specific. ## Related artworks - [Allegory \(Venus, Flora, Mars and Cupid\)]() - [Allegory with Lovers]() - [Annunciation]() - [Bathsheba Bathing]() - [Madonna and Child with Saints]() - [Nude]() - [Portrait of a Bearded Man]() - [Portrait of a Gentleman]() - [Portrait of a Woman]() - [Portrait of a Young Woman]() - [Portrait of Nikolaus Körbler]() - [Portrait of Thomas Stachel]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()