Venus and Adonis

c. 1540s/c. 1560-1565

Titian

Painter, Venetian, 1488/1490 - 1576

Italian 16th Century

Painter

A seated nude woman reaches for and embraces a partially clothed man as he begins to stride away in this horizontal painting. A winged child holds a dove near his face to our left, and two dogs stand to our right of the pair. The woman sits facing away from us, twisting to our right. Her knees are bent with one knee raised as she leans back on her seat and turns to wrap her arms around the man’s chest. Her flushed face looks up toward the man. She has pale skin, and her blond hair is braided and coiled on the back of her head. A sheer white cloth drapes from her left shoulder, along the left side of her body, and over that knee. Her seat is covered with an orchid-pink cloth. The man strides to our right with his shoulders angled in that direction. He turns his head to look at the woman under lowered lids. He has short, curly brown hair, and his pink lips are parted. He wears a steel-blue toga tied in place with a gold band over one shoulder. A horn is tied around his waist with a gold sash. He wears a shin-high, laced sandal on the leg we can see. The arm closer to the woman is held high, that hand gripping a tall staff. He holds the leashes of the two dogs with his other hand, by his side. A pink band is tied around that upper arm. One bronze-brown dog stands facing our right in profile, while the other, closer to us, has a white body and a brown head, which hangs down as it looks to our left. Both dogs have floppy ears, and their mouths are open with their pink tongues hanging out. In the shadows just beyond the woman’s back knee, the winged baby hunches his shoulders while holding the white dove to his cheek. The cherub has short, blond hair, rounded, flushed cheeks, and small white wings. The elbow closer to us rests on a ledge or tree branch. A tree grows up next to the cherub, reaching off the top edge of the painting. A hill rises to our right in the distance, and a rainbow arcs against a pale blue sky screened with parchment-white clouds. A bright white flash in the upper right corner illuminates the trees beneath it.

Media Options

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Venus, as if filled with foreboding about Adonis’s fate, desperately clings to her lover, while he pulls himself free of her embrace, impatient for the hunt and with his hounds straining at the leash. The goddess’s gesture is echoed by that of Cupid, who anxiously watches the lovers’ leave-taking while clutching a dove—a creature sacred to Venus.

Titian’s scene was inspired by the account in Ovid’s Metamorphoses of the goddess Venus’s love for the beautiful young huntsman Adonis, who was tragically killed by a wild boar. Though Ovid did not describe the last parting of the lovers, Titian’s imagining of it introduced a powerful element of dramatic tension into the story.

Venus and Adonis was one of the most successful designs of Titian’s later career. At least 30 versions are known to have been executed by the painter and his workshop, as well as independently by assistants and copyists within the painter’s lifetime and immediately afterward, and the evolution of the composition over the years was highly complex. For stylistic reasons, the Gallery’s version is believed to date from the 1560s. However, technical examination of the underlying paint layers has revealed changes to the composition that suggest the painting may have been begun as early as the 1540s.

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 23

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Widener Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 106.8 x 136 cm (42 1/16 x 53 9/16 in.)
    framed: 134.9 x 163.8 x 7 cm (53 1/8 x 64 1/2 x 2 3/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1942.9.84

More About this Artwork

Article:  34 Artworks About Love at the National Gallery

From first kisses to tragic romances, our collection abounds with love, in all its forms.

Scholarly Article:  Italian Paintings of the Sixteenth Century: Venus and Adonis, c. 1540s/c. 1560-1565

Scholarly Series:  Italian Paintings of the Sixteenth Century

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Robert Spencer, 2nd earl of Sunderland [1641-1702], London and Althorp, Northamptonshire, by 1679;[1] by inheritance to his youngest son, the Hon. John Spencer [d. 1746], Althorp;[2] by inheritance to John Spencer, 1st earl Spencer [1734-1783], Althorp;[3] by inheritance to George John Spencer, 2nd earl Spencer [1758-1834], Althorp;[4] by inheritance to John Charles Spencer, 3rd earl Spencer [1782-1845], Althorp; by inheritance to Frederick Spencer, 4th earl Spencer [1798-1857], Althorp; by inheritance to John Poyntz Spencer, 5th earl Spencer [1835-1910], Althorp; by inheritance to Charles Robert Spencer, 6th earl Spencer [1857-1922], Althorp; by inheritance to Albert Edward John Spencer, 7th earl Spencer [1892-1975], Althorp; sold 1924 to (Thos. Agnew & Sons, Ltd., London); sold 1925 to (Arthur J. Sulley and Co., London); inheritance from Estate of Peter A.B. Widener by gift through power of appointment of Joseph E. Widener, Elkins Park, after purchased 1925 by funds of the Estate; gift 1942 to NGA.
[1] The picture is first certainly recorded in the Chelsea house of Anne Russell Digby, Countess of Bristol [d. 1696/1697], mother-in-law of Lord Sunderland, by John Evelyn on 15 January 1679 (John Evelyn, The Diary of John Evelyn (1620–1706), ed. Esmond S. de Beer, 6 vols., Oxford, 1955: 4:162). Yet although Sunderland inherited a few family portraits from his mother-in-law, he acquired most of his extensive collection during his diplomatic career, including in Italy (Kenneth Garlick, “A Catalogue of Pictures at Althorp,” Walpole Society 45 [1974-1976]: xiii-xiv); and according to Thomas F. Dibdin, Aedes Althorpianae: An Account of the Mansion, Books and Pictures at Althorp, London, 1822: 13, the Venus and Adonis was one of Sunderland's favorite purchases. In 1685, still in the lifetime of Lady Bristol, Evelyn saw the picture again at Sunderland’s house in Whitehall (Evelyn 1955, 4:403). Harold Wethey repeats a theory that the picture is identical with a Venus and Adonis mentioned by Marco Boschini, in the Palazzo Barbarigo della Terrazza in Venice, and which is sometimes supposed to have been acquired by Cristoforo Barbarigo soon after Titian’s death from his son Pomponio; see Harold Wethey, The Paintings of Titian, 3 vols., London, 1969-1975: 3(1975):193–194; and Marco Boschini, La Carta del Navegar Pitoresco (1660), ed. Anna Pallucchini, Venice, 1966: 30, 664. But apart from the fact that Cristoforo’s will of 1600, which does mention the Gallery’s Venus with a Mirror (NGA 1937.1.34), makes no mention of any Venus and Adonis, Siebenhüner demonstrated that the Barbarigo version was of an upright format, was still in Venice in 1793/1795, was sold to the Czar of Russia in 1850, and is now lost. See Herbert Siebenhüner, Der Palazzo Barbarigo della Terrazza in Venedig und seine Tizian-Sammlung, Munich, 1981: 30; and also Fern Rusk Shapley, Catalogue of the Italian Paintings, 2 vols., Washington, 1979: 1:495.
[2] George Knapton’s catalogue of 1746, with an attribution to “Schidone” (Andrea Schiavone), after Titian (Kenneth Garlick, “A Catalogue of Pictures at Althorp,” Walpole Society 45 [1974-1976)]: 99 no. 175).
[3] Althorp catalogue of 1750, as by Schiavone after Titian (Kenneth Garlick, “A Catalogue of Pictures at Althorp,” Walpole Society 45 [1974-1976]: 108).
[4] Althorp catalogue of 1802, as by Schiavone after Titian (Kenneth Garlick, “A Catalogue of Pictures at Althorp,” Walpole Society 45 [1974-1976]: 124); Thomas F. Dibdin, Aedes Althorpianae: An Account of the Mansion, Books and Pictures at Althorp, London, 1822: 13-14, as by Titian; George John Spencer, 2nd Earl, Catalogue of the Pictures at Althorp House, in the County of North Hampton, 1831: 7.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1922

  • Loan Exhibition of Pictures by Old Masters on behalf of Lord Haig's appeal for ex-service men, Thomas Agnew and Sons, London, 1922, no. 14.

1989

  • Masterpieces of Western European Painting of the XVIth-XXth Centuries from the Museums of the European Countries and USA, State Hermitage Museum, Leningrad, 1989, no. 5, repro.

1996

  • Rings: Five Passions in World Art, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, 1996, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

Bibliography

1822

  • Dibdin, Thomas F. Aedes Althorpianae: An Account of the Mansion, Books and Pictures at Althorp. London, 1822: 13.

1833

  • Passavant, Johann David. Kunstreise durch England und Belgien. Frankfurt, 1833: 191.

1836

  • Spencer, George John, 2nd Earl. Catalogue of the Pictures at Althorp House, in the County of North Hampton. London, 1836: 9 no. 71.

1921

  • Graves, Algernon. Art Sales from Early in the Eighteenth Century to Early in the Twentieth Century (mostly Old Master and Early English Pictures). 3 vols. London, 1918–1921: 3(1921):210-213.

1922

  • Thos. Agnew & Sons. Catalogue of Pictures by Old Masters. London, 1922: 8 no. 14.

1923

  • Brockwell, Maurice. “Une exposition d’anciens maîtres à la Galerie Agnew.” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 65, no. 7 (1923): 55-56.

  • Fry, Roger. “A Monthly Chronicle. Old Masters Exhibition at Messrs. Agnew.” The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 42 (1923): 54.

1924

  • Holmes, Charles. “Titian’s Venus and Adonis in the National Gallery.” The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 45 (1924): 21.

1925

  • Mayer, August L. “Tizianstudien.” Münchner Jahrbuch der Bildenden Kunst 2 (1925): 276.

1926

  • Marillier, H. C. Christie's 1766 to 1925. London, 1926: 50, 224.

1930

  • Valentiner, Wilhelm R., ed. Unknown Masterpieces in Public and Private Collections. London, 1930: n.p., pl. 24.

  • Burchard, Ludwig. Unknown Masterpieces in Public and Private Collections. 2 vols. Edited by William R. Valentiner. London, 1930: 1:n.p.

1931

  • Paintings in the Collection of Joseph Widener at Lynnewood Hall. Intro. by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, 1931: 6, repro.

1932

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: A List of the Principal Artists and Their Works with an Index of Places. Oxford, 1932: 574.

1935

  • Suida, Wilhelm. Le Titien. Paris, 1935: 120-121.

1936

  • Berenson, Bernard. Pitture italiane del rinascimento: catalogo dei principali artisti e delle loro opere con un indice dei luoghi. Translated by Emilio Cecchi. Milan, 1936: 494.

1938

  • Waldmann, Emil. "Die Sammlung Widener." Pantheon 22 (November 1938): 340.

1942

  • Works of Art from the Widener Collection. Foreword by David Finley and John Walker. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 7.

1944

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. Masterpieces of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1944: 68, color repro.

1946

  • Riggs, Arthur Stanley. Titian the Magnificent and the Venice of His Day. New York, 1946: 9, color repro.

1948

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Widener Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1948 (reprinted 1959): 23, repro.

1950

  • Tietze, Hans. Titian. The Paintings and Drawings. London, 1950: 402.

1951

  • Einstein, Lewis. Looking at Italian Pictures in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1951: 86-87, repro.

1954

  • Tietze, Hans. “An Early Version of Titian’s Danaë: an Analysis of Titian’s Replicas.” Arte Veneta 8 (1954): 201-202.

1955

  • Evelyn, John. The Diary of John Evelyn (1620–1706). Edited by Esmond S. de Beer. 6 vols. Oxford, 1955: 4:162, 403.

1957

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Venetian School. 2 vols. London, 1957: 1:192.

1959

  • Gould, Cecil. National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth Century Venetian School. London, 1959: 99.

  • Morassi, Antonio. “Titian.” In Encyclopedia of World Art. 17+ vols. London, 1959+: 14(1967):col. 147.

1960

  • The National Gallery of Art and Its Collections. Foreword by Perry B. Cott and notes by Otto Stelzer. National Gallery of Art, Washington (undated, 1960s): 26.

  • Valcanover, Francesco. Tutta la pittura di Tiziano. 2 vols. Milan, 1960: 2:44.

1963

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 150, repro.

1964

  • Morassi, Antonio. Titian. Greenwich, CT, 1964: 63.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 130.

1966

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 1:180, color repro.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 117, repro.

1969

  • Pallucchini, Rodolfo. Tiziano. 2 vols. Florence, 1969: 1:142, 315.

  • Panofsky, Erwin. Problems in Titian, Mostly Iconographic. New York, 1969: 151.

  • Valcanover, Francesco. L’opera completa di Tiziano. Milan, 1969: 128-9 no. 429.

  • Wethey, Harold. The Paintings of Titian. 3 vols. London, 1969-1975: 3(1975): 59, 193-194, 241-242.

1972

  • Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972: 203, 475, 646.

  • Rosand, David. “Ut Pictor Poeta: Meaning in Titian’s Poesie.” New Literary History 3 (1972): 539.

1973

  • Zeri, Federico, and Elizabeth Gardner. Italian Paitnings. A Catalogue of the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Venetian School. New York, 1973: 81-82.

1974

  • Garlick, Kenneth. "A Catalogue of Pictures at Althorp." Walpole Society 45 (1974-1976): 99, 108, 124.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 346, repro.

  • Gould, Cecil. National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth Century Italian Schools. London, 1975: 298.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:492-495; 2:pl. 348, as Titian and Studio.

1980

  • Anderson, Jaynie. "Giorgione, Titian and the Sleeping Venus." In Tiziano e Venezia. Convegno internazionale di studi. Venezia, 1976. Vicenza, 1980: 339.

  • Gentili, Augusto. Da Tiziano a Tiziano: mito e allegoria nella cultura veneziana del Cinquecento. Milan, 1980: 115-116.

  • Heinemann, Fritz. “La bottega di Tiziano.” In Tiziano e Venezia: convegno internazionale di studi (1976). Vicenza, 1980: 435.

1981

  • Siebenhüner, Herbert. Der Palazzo Barbarigo della Terrazza in Venedig und seine Tizian-Sammlung. Munich, 1981: 30.

1982

  • Chiari, Maria Agnese. Incisioni da Tiziano: catalogo del fondo grafico a stampa del Museo Correr. Venice, 1982: 142, 157.

  • Fehl, Philipp. “Beauty and the Historian of Art: Titian’s Venus and Adonis.” In Atti del XXIV Congresso Internazionale di Storia dell’Arte, vol. 10: problemi di metodo, condizioni di esistenza di una storia dellárte (1979). Edited by Lajos Vayer. Bologna, 1982: 188; Reprint 1992: 107.

  • López Torrijos, Rosa. “Un dibujo de mitologia para las pinturas del Palacio del Viso del Marqués.” Archivo Español de Arte 217 (1982): 76-79.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 212, no. 259, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 396, repro.

1987

  • Bertini, Giuseppe. La Galleria del Duca di Parma. Storia di una Collezione. Bologna, 1987: 134.

1988

  • Gentili, Augusto. Da Tiziano a Tiziano: mito e allegoria nella cultura veneziana del Cinquecento. 2nd ed. Rome, 1988: 176-177.

1989

  • Obnovlenskaia, N.G. Masterpieces of western European painting of the XVIth-XXth centuries from the museums of the European countries and USA. Exh. cat. State Hermitage Museum, Leningrad, 1989: no. 5, repro.

1990

  • Titian, Prince of Painters. Exh. cat. Palazzo Ducale, Venice; National Gallery of Art, Washington. Venice, 1990: 328-330.

1991

  • Kopper, Philip. America's National Gallery of Art: A Gift to the Nation. New York, 1991: 195.

1993

  • Le Siècle de Titien. L’Âge d’Or de la Peinture à Venise. Exh. cat. Grand Palais, Paris, 1993: 616-617.

1995

  • Fornari Schianchi, Lucia, and Nicola Spinosa, eds. I Farnese: Arte e collezionismo. Exh. cat. Palazzo Ducale, Colorno; Galleria Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples; Haus der Kunst, Munich. Milan, 1995: 208.

1996

  • Rearick, W. R. “Titian’s Later Mythologies.” Artibus et Historiae 17, no. 33 (1996): 24, 34, 53.

1997

  • Goffen, Rona. Titian's Women. New Haven and London, 1997: no. 131, repro.

1999

  • Sutherland, Bruce D. “A Subtle Allusion in Titian’s Venus and Adonis Paintings.” Venezia Cinquecento 9, no. 17 (1999): 37, 49.

  • Valcanover, Francesco. Tiziano: I suoi pennelli sempre partorirono espressioni di vita. Florence, 1999: 267.

2001

  • Pedrocco, Filippo. Titian: The Complete Paintings. New York, 2001: 260.

2002

  • Quodbach, Esmée. "The Last of the American Versailles: The Widener Collection at Lynnewood Hall." Simiolus 29, no. 1/2 (2002): 70, 82, 96.

2003

  • Hosono, Kiyo. “Venere e Adone di Tiziano: la scelta del soggetto e le sue fonti.”
    Venezia Cinquecento 13, no. 26 (2003): 119, 125, repro. 127.

2005

  • Bayer, Andrea. “North of the Apennines. Sixteenth-century Italian Painting in Venice and the Veneto.” Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 63, no. 1 (Summer 2005): 15.

2006

  • Joannides, Paul. “Titian and the Extract.” Studi Tizianeschi 4 (2006): 139-140.

2007

  • Humfrey, Peter. Titian: The Complete Paintings. Ghent and New York, 2007: 338.

  • Joannides, Paul. “Titian’s Repetitions.” In Titian: Materiality, Likeness, Istoria. Edited by Joanna Woods-Marsden. Turnhout, 2007: 46.

  • Joannides, Paul, and Jill Dunkerton. “A Boy with a Bird in the National Gallery: Two Responses to a Titian Question.” National Gallery Technical Bulletin 28 (2007): 36.

  • Markova, Vittoria. “Una nuova versione della Venere e Adone di Tiziano. Notizie storico artistiche.” In Una nuova versione della Venere e Adone di Tiziano. Exh. cat. Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice, 2007: 24.

2008

  • Penny, Nicholas. National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth Century Italian Paintings, Vol. 2: Venice 1540-1600. London, 2008: 277, 282-283.

2012

  • Gentili, Augusto. Tiziano. Milan, 2012: 263.

  • Georgievska-Shine, Aneta. “Titian and the Paradoxes of Love and Art in Venus and Adonis.” Artibus et Historiae 33, no. 65 (2012): 99-100.

2013

  • Evans, Godfrey. “‘Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself’: The Dukes of Hamilton and Titian.” In The Reception of Titian in Britain: From Reynolds to Ruskin. Edited by Peter Humfrey. Turnhout, 2013: 136.

2014

  • Falomir, Miguel, and Paul Joannides. “Dánae y Venus y Adonis: origen y evolución.” In Dánae y Venus y Adonis, las primeras ‘poesías’ de Tiziano para Felipe II. Edited by Miguel Falomir. Exh. cat. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, 2014: 34-36, 67-68.

Wikidata ID

Q4009572

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