'Venus and Cupid' (A Female Nude embraced by a Small Child)
William Etty RA (York 1787 – York 1849)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1807 - 1849
Materials
Oil on panel
Measurements
216 x 330 mm (8 ½ x 13 in)
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire
NT 515511
Caption
This picture may have been the sketch for a finished Venus and Cupid now in the York City Art Gallery. Etty had a lifelong connection with the city of York: he was born there and died there, and he helped to promote the appreciation of art in the city and was a generous patron of the art gallery. William Etty was an unusual Victorian artist in dedicating himself almost exclusively to the depiction of the nude, which he painted in a glowing and sensual manner, reminiscent of Titian and Rubens. From his faithful studies undertaken at the Academy Life School, Etty produced many mythological and religious scenes, which he constantly subjected to the requirements of ideal art.
Summary
Oil painting on panel, Venus and Cupid by William Etty RA (York 1787 – York 1849). A three-quarter-length nude figure of a woman, seated and reclined, facing right, head in profile, propped up with her right arm, on which is a bracelet, resting on the back of the seat. Her hair is dressed with ringlets falling down the side of her cheek. A small child is held in the crook of her left arm, the child embracing her with its left arm around her neck. She holds a small white cloth in her left hand which acts as a modesty covering. A red curtain occupies most of the upper half of the picture, pulled back on the right to reveal a landscape background.
Provenance
Lord Lawrence of Kingsgate sale, Christie’s, 15 March 1935, lot 106 and bought by Cooling for 121/2 gns; date of acquisition by Lord Fairhaven is unknown; bequeathed to the National Trust by Huttleston Rogers Broughton, 1st Lord Fairhaven (1896-1966) with the house and the rest of the contents.
Credit line
Anglesey Abbey, The Fairhaven Collection (National Trust)
Makers and roles
William Etty RA (York 1787 – York 1849), artist
References
Farr 1958 Dennis Farr, William Etty, London, 1958, p.155, No. 95.