Venus Whipping Cupid with Roses

Venus Whipping Cupid with Roses

Giovanni Luigi Valesio

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In this print Venus's halfhearted efforts at disciplining her unruly son are undermined by a smiling satyr, the embodiment of lust. As the inscription states, love is not so easily chastised. Valesio, a poet as well as a prolific engraver who specialized in creating allegorical title pages, designed this work as one of a pair of love allegories.


Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Venus Whipping Cupid with RosesVenus Whipping Cupid with RosesVenus Whipping Cupid with RosesVenus Whipping Cupid with RosesVenus Whipping Cupid with Roses

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.