Venus Fainting Over Adonis

Attributed to a Nordic painter in Tintoretto’s Venetian workshop, this painting (1550–55) shows the dying Adonis collapsed on rich drapery, attended by Cupid and a dog. Venus’s grief appears in the larger scene beyond this fragment. The inclusion of attendant figures, absent from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, reflects the studio’s adaptation of the myth. Tintoretto’s influence appears in the dramatic color and fluid modeling, while the precise textures and cool tonality suggest a Northern collaborator.