(Munich circa 1545–1592)
Venus and Cupid,
oil on canvas, 98 x 175.5 cm, framed

The present, highly sensual, painting stands out as an example of that type of erotic picture that attained success at Venice in the age of Titian and Paolo Veronese, and in the Prague of Emperor Rudolf. Indeed, this work does not represent a myth of the ancient gods, but rather simply provides the occasion to attractively display the fine nude figure of Venus, represented according to the era’s canon of feminine beauty. Stylistically the figure is poised between Venice and Prague, because she lacks the concise outline and luminous layering of the stroke, and the cerebral quality of pose typical of the latter school, though being entirely imbued in this stylistic climate, while the softness and elegant sinuosity of the restrained draughtsmanship bears the mark of Paolo Veronese and his followers.

The pose of Venus recalls those by Titian in his many renderings of Venus with an organist (such as the one in the Museo del Prado), however, the Greek profile of the goddess recalls that of the kneeling woman on the right in Veronese’s Saint Sebastian urging Saints Mark and Marcellino to martyrdom in the Venetian church of San Sebastiano, dated to circa 1565: a canvas that was much admired and copied.

This careful balance between the styles of Titian, Veronese and the emergent international mannerism of Prague is a specific stylistic trait of the author of the present painting, Christoph Schwartz, who according to Karel van Mander ‘should be considered the pearl of art in all Germany’ (see K. Van Mander, Het Schilderboeck, Harlem 1604, ed. it., Le vite degli illustri pittori fiamminghi, olandesi e tedeschi, Sant’Oreste 2000, p. 263).

Schwartz’s sojourn in the Veneto from 1570-74, although brief, guaranteed him a brilliant career: in 1574 he entered the service of Duke Albert V of Baveria as court painter. At Venice, he immediately entered the studio of Titian, and subsequently he belonged to the équipe of Veronese that frescoed the Villa Giusti at Magnadola di Cessalto, as B. W. Meijer has recognised (see B. W. Meijer, New light on Christoph Schwartz in Venice and the Veneto, in: Artibus et Historiae, 39, 1999, pp. 127-156). A similar composition to the present painting can be seen in an engraving by Aegidius Sadeler representing a Satyr unveiling a woman in the Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna: this derives from a lost painting by Schwartz that may have been made during his Venetian sojourn.

The detail of the head of Venus in the present painting also reoccurs in the canvas representing the Baptism of Christ in the Museo del Prado and in the fresco One of the Horatii slaying his sister at Cessalto, while a child’s head that is almost identical to that of Cupid in the present painting is to be found in the Coriolanus embracing his mother frescoed in the same villa, as well as in a drawing of the Rape of the Sabines in the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenaghen. It therefore seems probable that the present canvas should also be dated between 1570 and 1573, and that it belongs to the period of Schwartz’s Venetian sojourn. 

We are grateful to Mauro Lucco for suggesting the attribution after examining the present painting in the original and for his help in cataloguing this lot.

The present, highly sensual, painting stands out as an example of that type of erotic picture that attained success at Venice in the age of Titian and Paolo Veronese, and in the Prague of Emperor Rudolf. Indeed, this work does not represent a myth of the ancient gods, but rather simply provides the occasion to attractively display the fine nude figure of Venus, represented according to the era’s canon of feminine beauty. Stylistically the figure is poised between Venice and Prague, because she lacks the concise outline and luminous layering of the stroke, and the cerebral quality of pose typical of the latter school, though being entirely imbued in this stylistic climate, while the softness and elegant sinuosity of the restrained draughtsmanship bears the mark of Paolo Veronese and his followers.

The pose of Venus recalls those by Titian in his many renderings of Venus with an organist (such as the one in the Museo del Prado), however, the Greek profile of the goddess recalls that of the kneeling woman on the right in Veronese’s Saint Sebastian urging Saints Mark and Marcellino to martyrdom in the Venetian church of San Sebastiano, dated to circa 1565: a canvas that was much admired and copied.

This careful balance between the styles of Titian, Veronese and the emergent international mannerism of Prague is a specific stylistic trait of the author of the present painting, Christoph Schwarz, who according to Karel van Mander ‘should be considered the pearl of art in all Germany’ (see K. Van Mander, Het Schilderboeck, Harlem 1604, ed. it., Le vite degli illustri pittori fiamminghi, olandesi e tedeschi, Sant’Oreste 2000, p. 263).

Schwarz’s sojourn in the Veneto from 1570-74, although brief, guaranteed him a brilliant career: in 1574 he entered the service of Duke Albert V of Baveria as court painter. At Venice, he immediately entered the studio of Titian, and subsequently he belonged to the équipe of Veronese that frescoed the Villa Giusti at Magnadola di Cessalto, as B. W. Meijer has recognised (see B. W. Meijer, New light on Christoph Schwarz in Venice and the Veneto, in: Artibus et Historiae, 39, 1999, pp. 127-156). A similar composition to the present painting can be seen in an engraving by Aegidius Sadeler representing a Satyr unveiling a woman in the Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna: this derives from a lost painting by Schwarz that may have been made during his Venetian sojourn.

The detail of the head of Venus in the present painting also reoccurs in the canvas representing the Baptism of Christ in the Museo del Prado and in the fresco One of the Horatii slaying his sister at Cessalto, while a child’s head that is almost identical to that of Cupid in the present painting is to be found in the Coriolanus embracing his mother frescoed in the same villa, as well as in a drawing of the Rape of the Sabines in the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenaghen. It therefore seems probable that the present canvas should also be dated between 1570 and 1573, and that it belongs to the period of Schwarz’s Venetian sojourn.

We are grateful to Mauro Lucco for suggesting the attribution after examining the present painting in the original and for his help in cataloguing this lot.