c.1478, 203*314Cm, tempera on panel
Botticelli's rustic idyll centres on the figure of Venus, who
raises her hand in a traditional gesture of welcome. She is
attended by her son, Cupid, the god of love, who takes aim
with his flaming arrow. Her handmaidens, the Three Graces
- goddesses of charm, grace, and beauty-
dance at one side.
They are shown "with hands interlo-
cked...smiling and youthful, clad in loosened transparent gowns", just as the ancient author Seneca had described them. He was writing about a lost classical painting in which Mercury stands alongside the Graces. In the Renaissance, Alberti recommended
Seneca's description as an imaginative treatment of a subject that painters could emulate.
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