Venus and Adonis, Ferdinand Bol, c. 1658
oil on canvas, h 168cm × w 230cm × d 6cm More details
Bol here painted a scene from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The goddess of love, Venus, and young Amor, try to deter Adonis from going on a boar hunt. Venus fears for his life. Bol – a pupil of Rembrandt – displays a smooth and bright manner of painting very different from his master’s darker, coarser style. Bol used it to conjure an idealized image of reality.
