A composition of Venus and Adonis by the Venetian Renaissance artist Titian has been painted a number of times, by Titian himself, by his studio assistants and by others. In all there are some thirty versions that may date from the 16th century, the nudity of Venus undoubtedly accounting for this popularity.Bull, 60–62 It is unclear which of the surviving versions, if any, is the original or prime version, and a matter of debate how much involvement Titian himself had with surviving versions. There is a precise date for only one version, that in the Prado in Madrid, which is documented in correspondence between Titian and Philip II of Spain in 1554. However, this appears to be a later repetition of a composition first painted a considerable time earlier, possibly as early as the 1520s.
The Prado version is set at dawn and shows the young Adonis pulling himself away from Venus, his lover. He carries a feathered spear or "dart", a weapon often used in hunting in the 16th century.Penny, 278. There are two such weapons in Diana and Callisto. The leads of his three hounds are wound around his arm at right. Under the trees behind them at left Cupid lies asleep, with his bow and quiver of arrows hanging from a tree; this is not a time for love. High in the sky, a figure rides a chariot; this is either Venus from later in the story, or Apollo or Sol, representing the dawn. Venus sits on a rock covered with a rich tablecloth with gold braid edges and buttons (not a military jacket, as sometimes thought).Penny, 278. Such a tablecloth can be seen in Titian's Philip II in Armour. Adonis has a horn hanging from his belt; his dress is classical, taken from Roman sculptures.Penny, 278
It is thought that the Roman poet Ovid was the main source, though other literary and visual sources have been suggested. In Book X of Ovid's Metamorphoses Adonis is a beautiful youth, a royal orphan, who spends his time hunting. Venus falls in love with him after one of Cupid's arrows hits her by mistake. They hunt together, but she avoids the fiercer animals, and warns him about them, citing the story of Atalanta. One day Adonis hunts alone and is gored by a wounded wild boar. Venus, in the sky in her chariot, hears his cries but cannot save him.Penny, 278–280 In some versions, the death of Adonis is shown in the distance to the right.Penny, 281 In Ovid, it is Venus who leaves first, and Adonis pulling himself away seems to be Titian's invention, for which some criticized him.Penny, 280
Two basic types of the composition were described by Harold Wethey, who called them the "Prado" and "Farnese" types; the Prado type is most common and is described above.Penny, 280–283 Alternative terms are the "three-dog" and "two-dog" types.Boy, 36, 38 They are in most respects the same, but the Farnese type has a tighter crop on the subject and a wider shape, losing most of the sky. Adonis' raised hand is just below the picture edge, so the feathers on the spear are not seen, nor is the chariot in the sky, though the sun bursts through clouds in about the same place. There are only two hounds and no gold vessel on the ground at left. Cupid is brought closer to the main couple, and is now awake, holding a dove in his hands.
Prado type versions The heights of these versions vary from 160–200 cm, but the widths are more consistent at 190–200 cm. All the Farnese versions are a good deal smaller, but their tighter composition makes the figures about the same size.Boy, 38
Prado, Madrid The version now in Madrid's Museo del Prado is generally agreed to be the earliest of the surviving versions. Although not certainly documented until 1626,so Penny, 286; the Prado "bibliography" only takes back to an inventory of 1666. it is generally regarded as the painting documented as despatched to King Philip II of Spain in London (he was then married to Mary Tudor, and in fact not yet King of Spain, but King of England) by Titian in September 1554, as announced in a letter which survives.Penny, 280, he grants it is "reasonably supposed" to be this painting. Philip received it in December, and wrote to a courtier complaining about "a fold made in packing". The Prado picture has a seam where two pieces of canvas were joined "which is indeed now very evident" on the picture.
A theory proposed by William R. (Roger) Rearick was that this first painting was in fact the "Lausanne" version, and Titian subsequently sent another version, the one now in the Prado, but this is rejected by Nicholas Penny and remains controversial.Penny, 281, 289 note 52 Adonis looks older in this than other versions, and Venus' body is shorter; later versions may have been made by copying the London version, which was retained in the studio in Venice. The Prado version is at least mostly by Titian, though Penny finds the head of Venus "disappointing".Penny, 281–282
It was part of a series of mythological paintings called "poesie" ("poems") intended for King Philip II of Spain. Venus and Adonis was designed to be viewed alongside Danaë, the first of the poesie, which was delivered in 1553, although they are not same size.Falomir video; Penny, 203, says "probably" delivered in 1550. It is now agreed that Philip's original version is now in the Wellington Collection, see Falomir video. A later version of Danaë is now shown in the same room in the Prado, with other Titians.
Titian explained in a letter to Philip that the two paintings would offer contrasting front and rear views of a nude Venus, thus allowing painting to compete with sculpture.Penny, 284 This apart, contemporary accounts show the powerful effect these paintings had on male viewers. The squashed bottom of the sitting Venus here was still novel in art and considered exceptionally erotic. The Venetian critic Lodovico Dolce praised (in the Prado version) the "marvellous piece of dexterity ... in that one recognises in her hindmost parts here the distension of the flesh caused by sitting ... there is no man so sharp of sight and discernment that he does not believe when he sees her that she is alive; no one so chilled by age or so hard in his makeup that he does not feel himself growing warm and tender, and the whole of his blood stirring in his veins."Jaffé, 132, quoting Dolce's letter, which is discussed at Penny, 285; Penny, 280 lists some precedents for her pose, on which see below.
That the female tries to physically restrain her lover from leaving her was also novel and effective, a gesture, not in any of Titian's sources, which by "transferring Venus's sense of loss at Adonis's death to his departure" brings "the two halves of the story together in a single moment of love and loss".Bull, 215–216
Writing of this and Titian's other mythological paintings from the same years, Sydney Joseph Freedberg said they "convey the sense that an extraordinary reach of classical expression has been achieved in them, as sensuous experience, as much as that of the spirit and the mind, assumes the stature of idea. ... As overt decorative virtue yields to depth of meaning in these works colour becomes quieter, but in compensation is infused by the rougher vibrance taken on by light".Freedberg, 508–509
"Lausanne version" Once in a private Lausanne collection, it failed to sell at Christie's in 1998, but was offered for auction at Sotheby's in 2022, with an estimate of 8 to 12 million pounds. It had been on loan to the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford."Titian's Timeless Venus and Adonis Comes to Auction", Sotheby's, by Rachael Sigee, 21 October, 2022 The death of Adonis is included in the background, and the figure in the chariot in the sky is certainly Venus as it is pulled by swans, a traditional attribute. William R. (Roger) Rearick has suggested that this painting is the first version sent to Philip II of Spain in the 1550s, about whose condition Philip complained on arrival, perhaps mistaking a seam in the canvas for a fold. According to this hypothesis, the "Lausanne" painting was returned to Venice, and replaced by the version now in Madrid. Penny is unconvinced by these "extraordinary claims", seeing it as a repetition based on the London version.William R. Rearick, "Titian's Later Mythologies", Artibus et Historiae, no. 33, 1996; Penny, 281, 289 note 52
It was certainly in the Orleans Collection, and was very probably before that one of the two versions in the collection of Queen Christina of Sweden in Rome, and looted by the Swedes from the collection of Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor in Prague Castle in 1648. After the Orleans Collection was dispersed, it belonged to the artist Benjamin West. It was then little seen in public for a long time, until in 2007 it was exhibited for at an exhibition of Titian paintings in Belluno. Soon after it was for several years on loan to the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
National Gallery, London Dated and attributed to Titian's workshop, although the master himself may have done the "bold underdrawing", and painted the head of Adonis and Venus' hair.Penny, 276;
Penny proposes that it was the "studio model" kept in Venice when the Prado version was sent to Madrid, and including minor improvements to the composition, which can then be seen being followed in later versions (of the Prado type), that were made by copying it. These would include the Getty, Lausanne and Rome versions, which have the main features in sufficiently identical positions to the London version to have been traced from it, which would not have worked from the Prado version. But the composition continued to develop and there are details and similarities between the Prado and London versions which are not shared by others. These include the following: Adonis has no undergarment covering his shoulder and upper arm (to the right); Venus does not sit on a white cloth; the mouth of the vessel faces away from the viewer. Conversely, examples of details not in the Prado version, but in the London and other versions are the string of pearls in Venus' hair, and a larger gap between Adonis' face and the strap over his chest.Penny, 282
It cannot be traced back further than the Salviati collection in the 17th century. It was one of thirty-eight paintings from John Julius Angerstein's collection acquired by the British government in 1824 for £57,000 which formed the original nucleus of the National Gallery.Penny, 276, 284;
J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu The version in the J. Paul Getty Museum, is dated to 1555–60. The museum attribute it to Titian, though others are not so sure. Penny sees it as a workshop replica based on the London version, but "a good case could be made for his intervention" in places, such as "the painting of the tremulous lights" on the cloth Venus sits on.Penny, 283
Its provenance begins in an inventory of 1648 in Genoa, and then includes Christina, Queen of Sweden and the Orleans Collection. Like most of the collection, it was bought by a consortium in London after the French Revolution. It was selected by a member of the consortium, Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle, as part of his share, although he did not keep it long. From 1844 to 1991 it was in the collection of successive Earls of Normanton and relatives. The museum acquired the painting in 1992.
Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome The Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica (Palazzo Barberini) in Rome has a version supposedly executed around 1560. It gives Adonis a jaunty hat with a feather which is also seen in the Dulwich version below, and a reduced (much smaller) version at Alnwick Castle, once thought to be Titian's modello, an idea now discounted. The Titian scholar Harold Wethey called the hat "ridiculous" and "preposterous", and considered Titian had no hand in the Rome version, a "mediocre school piece".Wethey quoted in note 12 to "Shakespeare & Titian II", Art History Today blog