The Worship of Venus
The Worship of Venus is an oil on canvas painting by the Italian artist Titian completed between 1518 and 1519, housed at the Museo del Prado in Madrid, Spain. It describes a Roman rite of worship conducted in honour of the goddess Venus each 1 April. On this occasion, women would make offerings to representations of the goddess so as to cleanse "every blemish on their bodies".
Description
In Titian's work, two nymphs, one young and one matronly, are situated to the right of the ceremony, attending to a shrine holding a statue of Venus according to the iconography of the Venus Pudica. The shrine is surrounded by votive tablets. The older woman checks on the decorations with the use of a mirror which she holds high in her extended right hand. The foreground of the canvas is thronged with a swarm of male infants, or putti, who distract themselves in activities such as climbing trees, leaping, flying, gathering apples, lying around, fighting, fondling, shooting arrows and pulling each other's hair. A dam is shown in the middle background, near a sunlit meadow. The far distance is decorated with a mountain and blue sky.