Cupid Complaining to Venus
Lucas Cranach the Elder · c. 1526
The story
Cupid Complaining to Venus is an oil painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder. Nearly 20 similar works by Cranach and his workshop are known, from the earliest dated version in Güstrow Palace of 1527 to one in the Burrell Collection, Glasgow, dated to 1545, with the figures in a variety of poses and differing in other details. The Metropolitan Museum of Art notes that the number of extant versions suggests that this was one of Cranach's most successful compositions.
A version acquired by the National Gallery, London in 1963 is perhaps the earliest example. Although undated, experts have dated it to c. 1526–27. It is more elaborate than the others, and in a larger format than most, except for the similarly sized Güstrow version and a larger (life size) version at the Galleria Borghese, Rome dated to 1531. Cranach had painted Venus and Cupid together since at least his 1509 painting now held by the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.
- Artist
- Lucas Cranach the Elder
- Date
- c. 1526
- Collection
- National Gallery, London, United Kingdom
- Movement
- German Renaissance
- Medium
- paint, panel
- Size
- 81.3 × 54.6 cm
Story adapted from the Wikipedia article and its contributors, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Facts from Wikidata (CC0). Image: Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.
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