A tempera panel painting by the Florentine artist Sandro Botticelli, made around 1483 to 1485, showing the Roman goddess of love watchfully alert beside the sleeping god of war. Four infant satyrs play with Mars's discarded armor and lance, one blowing a conch shell in his ear without waking him, while a swarm of wasps hovers near his head, likely a reference to the Vespucci family whose name means little wasps and who may have commissioned the panel to mark a wedding. Its long, low format suggests it was set into bedroom furniture or paneling. Botticelli drew on the Greek writer Lucian's description of a lost ancient painting of Alexander the Great's wedding, recasting its cupids as satyrs. The panel was bought in Florence by the English collector Alexander Barker and passed to the National Gallery, London, at auction in 1874, the only recorded open-market sale of one of Botticelli's large mythological paintings.
Facts
Origins
Date of Creation Attributed To Custody
Current LocationSourced to the subject's own accountNational Gallery, London, accession NG915 2 Current CustodianSourced to the subject's own accountNational Gallery, London 2 Rights and Reproduction
Reproduction and CopyrightSourced to the subject's own accountThe panel itself is centuries past any copyright term, but a specific modern photograph of it carries its own separate copyright. This atlas describes and cites the work rather than reproducing an image of it. 2 Physical Form
MediumTempera (and some oil) on poplar panel 1 Dimensions69 cm by 173.4 cm (27.2 by 68.1 inches) 1 Subject Matter
Depicted SubjectVenus, goddess of love, watching over the sleeping Mars, god of war, an allegory of love's power over martial strength drawn from Renaissance Neoplatonism. 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Florence directly: "The panel was bought in Florence by the English collector Alexander Barker and passed to the National Gallery, London, at auction in 1874, the only recorded open-market sale of one of Botticelli's..."
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