Venus and Mars (Botticelli)
Venus and Mars is a panel painting of about 1485 by the Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli. It shows the Roman gods Venus, goddess of love, and Mars, god of war, in an allegory of beauty and valour. The youthful and voluptuous couple recline in a forest setting, surrounded by playful baby satyrs.
Venus and Mars, c 1485. Tempera and oil on poplar panel, 69 cm x 173 cm. National Gallery, London
Infant satyr and landscape
Mars, with the wasp's nest on the right
Venus
Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, better known as Sandro Botticelli or simply Botticelli, was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. Botticelli's posthumous reputation suffered until the late 19th century, when he was rediscovered by the Pre-Raphaelites who stimulated a reappraisal of his work. Since then, his paintings have been seen to represent the linear grace of late Italian Gothic and some Early Renaissance painting, even though they date from the latter half of the Italian Renaissance period.
Probable self-portrait of Botticelli, in his Adoration of the Magi (1475).
Detail from Botticelli's most famous work, The Birth of Venus (c. 1484–1486)
Via Borgo Ognissanti in 2008, with the eponymous church halfway down on the right. Like the street, it has had a Baroque makeover since Botticelli's time.
Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist, c. 1470–1475, Louvre