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Domenico Beccafumi (Italian, 1486-1551), Venus and Cupid, circa 1530.
Oil on linden wood. New Orleans Museum of Art, The Samuel H. Kress Collection.
In Roman mythology, Cupid was the son of Venus, the goddess of beauty and love, and Vulcan, the god of fire and a divine metalsmith who inhabits the underworld. Cupid gestures to his mother asking for the arrows she holds, which were made for him by Vulcan. Venus holds the arrows hostage as she gestures to the landscape explaining to her son the weight of responsibility possession of the arrows will bring, for his arrows strike immediate love in humans, nothing to meddle with or take casually. In the background, Vulcan is shown at work in his cave-like forge. According to legend, Cupid matures and falls in love with Psyche, a mortal woman who is compared
to Venus and considered by some to be more beautiful than the goddess. Enraged with jealousy, Venus commands her son to kill Psyche, but in the process Cupid scratches himself with a bow and falls in love with his mother’s rival. The couple are able to overcome family strife, proving that love is possible in spite of maternal disapproval, but the lovestruck pair eventually face a crisis of trust when Psyche disobeys Cupid’s request that she never gaze upon his face.
