Venus and Adonis, Jusepe De Ribera (1637)
The myth of Venus and Adonis has reached its final scene. Adonis, the beautiful young man loved by Venus, has been killed by a boar while hunting. The goddess bursts into the scene with a leap which is not just a dramatic device but reflects the original myth. Ovid, in Book 10 of the Metamorphoses relates that Venus was travelling in a chariot drawn by swans while returning to Cyprus, when she heard the moans of the dying Adonis and came hurtling down from the sky.
