Venus and the Nymphs Lamenting the Death of Adonis

Venus and the Nymphs Lamenting the Death of Adonis

Luca Cambiaso

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Cambiaso represented the tale of Venus and Adonis in many of his paintings and drawings. A number of his designs also appear in woodcuts, which may have been created under his supervision. Here, Venus, in the company of the Graces, mourns her dead love, while amorini attack and trap the boar responsible for his death. Cambiaso's literary source was an anonymous Greek poem in which the boar, called to account by the goddess, claims that he only wanted to kiss the fair, white thigh of Adonis.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Venus and the Nymphs Lamenting the Death of AdonisVenus and the Nymphs Lamenting the Death of AdonisVenus and the Nymphs Lamenting the Death of AdonisVenus and the Nymphs Lamenting the Death of AdonisVenus and the Nymphs Lamenting the Death of Adonis

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.