Venus with Mercury and Cupid ('The School of Love')
after Correggio (Correggio c.1489 – Correggio 1534)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
circa 1640
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
1537 x 914 mm (60 1/2 x 36 in)
Order this imageCollection
Ham House, Surrey
NT 1139671
Caption
The trio are seen in a forest clearing. Venus is standing, naked, but in a bashful, decorous pose, loosely based on the classical Venus Pudica, and, unusually, with wings. Mercury, who is traditionally associated with calculation and therefore elementary education is acting as teacher to Cupid. He is seated, wearing a winged hat, rather than his usual helmet, and looking patiently on whilst Cupid is solving a problem. This is copy after the original painting by Correggio now in the National Gallery, London which was owned successively by the Gonzagas in Mantua, Charles I, Duke of Alba, Emmanuel Godoy and the 3rd Marquess of Londonderry in about 1822/3. when it was probably copied.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Venus with Mercury and Cupid ('The School of Love'), after Correggio (Correggio c.1489 – Correggio 1534), circa 1640. Three full-length figures, Venus, naked on the left, standing, winged Cupid as a child in the centre, and Mercury seated wearing is turned to the right, but looks down at Cupid. The trio are seen in a forest clearing. Venus is standing, naked, but in a bashful, decorous pose, loosely based on the classical Venus Pudica, and, unusually, with wings. Mercury, who is traditionally associated with calculation and therefore elementary education is acting as teacher to Cupid. He is seated, wearing a winged hat, rather than his usual helmet, and looking patiently on whilst Cupid is solving a problem. This is a copy after the original painting by Correggio, of around 1524/5, now in the National Gallery, London which was owned successively by the Gonzagas in Mantua, Charles I (when it was probably copied for William Murray, of Ham House), Duke of Alba, Emmanuel Godoy and the 3rd Marquess of Londonderry in about 1822/3 who sold it to the National Gallery in 1834.
Provenance
In 1677 inventory and 1683 inventory (106); acquired in 1948 by HM Government when Sir Lyonel, 4th Bt (1854 – 1952) and Sir Cecil Tollemache, 5th Bt (1886 – 1969) presented Ham House to the National Trust, and entrusted to the care of the Victoria & Albert Museum, until 1990, when returned to the care of the National Trust, and to which ownership was transferred in 2002
Makers and roles
after Correggio (Correggio c.1489 – Correggio 1534), artist possibly Richard Greenbury (c.1600 - 1670), artist
Exhibition history
Kwab, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 2018
References
Rowell 2013: Christopher Rowell (ed.), Ham House, 400 Years of Collecting and Patronage, Yale University Press, New Haven & London 2013, fig. 27, p. 39 Wood 2000-1 Jeremy Wood, 'Orazio Gentileschi and Some Netherlandish Artists in London: The Patronage of the Duke of Buckingham, Charles I and Henrietta Maria', Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art, vol. 28, no. 3, 2000-1, pp. 103-28, p. 128