Gavin Hamilton had already studied in Rome in the 1740s. After a short stay in London, he returned there for good in 1756. In the 1770s, he undertook many excavations as an art dealer and archaeologist. When he painted this life-size Venus giving Helen to Paris as his wife, now held by the Palazzo Braschi, in 1782-84, he had already spent about thirty years in Rome.
According to the inscription on the base, this group of Aphrodite, Pan and Eros was dedicated by Dionysios of Berytos to his ancestral gods. It was found on Delos and is dated to about 100 B.C. (source).
A sandal-binder Venus by Ivan Vitali, 1852, now located in the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.
This Venus from 1785 is one of the very few mythological pieces by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and one of the very few nudes.
This painting by Alessandro Varotari, known as Il Padovanino, of Mars and Venus playing chess is located in the Augusteum in Oldenburg, Lower Saxony. As with most pictures of this artist, no exact date is known, but it is probably from the 1630s.
Alessandro Varotari was born 1588 in Padua and is hence commonly known as Il Padovanino. He died 1649 in Venice. This Sleeping Venus with Putti measures 120×150cm and is in a private collectuion, no further details are known.
It has been said that Boucher represented and embodied the taste of his century, and no single painting probably captured the spirit of this century better than The Toilet of Venus (1751).
The Power of Venus is one of the mythological paintings by Richard Westall that are far less well known than his portraits of Lord Byron.
Rubens started this painting of Venus, Cupid, Bacchus and Ceres in 1612 and finished it in 1613. It measures 200×141 cm and now hangs in Kassel in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen.
Rubens executed this painting after his stay with the Gonzaga at Mantua, where he saw the Crouching Venus that later came into the possession of Sir Peter Lely and is now known under his name.
The whole allegory should probably be understood in context, and contrast, with the Sine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus motif: Venus and Cupid (love), Bacchus (wine) and Ceres (food) all contributing to a good life.
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