Venus Wounded by a Rose's Thorn Italy, 16th century

Venus Wounded by a Rose's Thorn

c. 1516

Antonio Salamanca

(c.1500–1562)

Italy, 16th century

engraving

Support: Cream(3) laid paper

Watermarks:

Sheet: 26.1 x 16.8 cm (10 1/4 x 6 5/8 in.)

Dudley P. Allen Fund 1930.581

Catalogue raisonné: Bartsch XIV.241.321 (as Marc. Raimondi, XIV.241) Le B.II.111.18; Ottley II.261

State: II/III

Location: not on view

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Did You Know?

The story featured here has been used to explain why some roses are red: they were stained with the blood of Venus after she pricked herself while walking in the forest.

Description

This composition alludes to The Lament for Adonis by the Greek poet Bion (active about 100 BCE). In the poem, Venus, distraught by the death of her lover Adonis, wanders barefoot in the woods and is wounded by brambles. Although Bion implores Venus to “weep no longer in the thickets,” the poem does not describe the moment depicted here when she plucks a thorn from her foot, imaginatively conceived as a vehicle to present a classical female nude. The wide-eyed hare near Venus is an ancient symbol of fertility and sexual desire.