Aphrodite2.0009Boucher

Aphrodite2.0009Boucher

Boucher at Wikipedia Commons
Hesiod Theogony 188-206
Sappho "Ode to Aphrodite", trns. A. Carson
Lucretius De rerum natura 1.1-30
Horace Odes 4.15
Ovid Met. 10.534

François Boucher, 1702-1770, “The Bath of Venus,” 1751, oil on canvas; Washington, National Gallery of Art, Chester Dale Collection 1943.7.2

Boucher was commissioned by Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, the Marquise de Pompadour who was mistress of Louis XV, and used to decorate the bath facility in her mansion. The Marquise combined this painting, which bears her likeness, beside several other depictions of Venus.
Boucher worked with similar subjects for much of career. This particular painting seems not to be documented among the three dozen Bouchers in OGCMA, s.v. "Aphrodite, General List"

National Gallery of Art, Washington. 2016. *Highlights from the National Gallery of Arts, Washington.” P. 156 w/ illustration.

OGCMA slides are designed by Roger T. Macfarlane for use in Classical Civilization 241 courses at Brigham Young University.
The present resource contains information assembled for The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1400 – 1990’s, edited by J. Davidson Reid (Oxford 1994), and it is used with express permission from Oxford University Press.
Address concerns or inquiries to macfarlane@byu.edu.