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Veronese’s Allegories:
Virtue, Love, and Exploration in Renaissance Venice
April 11 through July 16, 2006

Paolo Veronese (1528–1588) Venus and Mars United by Love, 1570s Oil on canvas 81 x 63 1/4 in. (205.7 x 161 cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, John Stewart Kennedy Fund, 1910, New York Buy the catalogue

Cupid unites with a ribbon Mars, the god of war and strength, to a naked Venus, the goddess of beauty, passion, and love. The water spouting from the fountain and the lactating Venus imply the fecundity of the union. Another Cupid walks away with Mars’s sword while restraining the god’s horse. The triumph of Love over War is a wellknown concept often represented in works of art from the Italian Renaissance. The painting is signed at the bottom on a marble fragment: PAVLUS VERONESIS F (made by Paolo Veronese).>>