Venus and Cupid with a Satyr (c. 1528) is a painting by the Italian late Renaissance artist Antonio Allegri da Correggio. It is housed in the Musée du Louvre, Paris.
The painting was commissioned by Federico II Gonzaga, duke of Mantua. It depicts Venus sleeping with her son Eros. Behind them, a satyr is caught while discovering the goddess. The picture was incorrectly identified as portraying Jupiter and Antiope as, according to the legend, Zeus had turned himself into a satyr to kidnap the nymph.
The painting was probably connected to the Education of Cupid, now in the National Gallery of London.
Famous quotes containing the words venus and cupid, venus and/or cupid:
“In the drawing room [of the Queen’s palace] hung a Venus and Cupid by Michaelangelo, in which, instead of a bit of drapery, the painter has placed Cupid’s foot between Venus’s thighs. Queen Caroline asked General Guise, an old connoisseur, if it was not a very fine piece? He replied “Madam, the painter was a fool, for he has placed the foot where the hand should be.””
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“and Venus among the fishes skips and is a she-dolphin
she is the gay, delighted porpoise sporting with love and the sea
she is the female tunny-fish, round and happy among the males
and dense with happy blood, dark rainbow bliss in the sea.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“I bow’d not to thy image for succession,
Nor bound thy bow to shoot reformed kindness,
Thy plays of hope and fear were my confession,
The spectacles to my life was thy blindness;
But Cupid now farewell, I will go play me,
With thoughts that please me less and less betray me.”
—Fulke Greville (1554–1628)