Venus Disarming Love, Benedetto Gennari (cento, 1633 - Bologna, 1715) Attributable To

Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, the Guercino (Cento 1591 - Bologna 1666), workshop
Attributable to, Benedetto Gennari (Cento, 1633 - Bologna, 1715)

Venus disarming Love

oil on canvas
72 x 96 cm. - In frame 89 x 112 cm.

Full details (click HERE)

The subject of our canvas, Venus Disarming Love, traditionally commissioned to celebrate the love between a married couple (the painting by Alessandro Allori commissioned by Francesco I to honour his union for Bianca Cappello is famous).

Cupid, son of Venus, is represented here as a winged boy who, according to typical iconography, carries a quiver inside which he holds arrows ready to strike the future lovers. Venus, by taking the bow and arrow from his hand, intends to sanction that Cupid's task is no longer necessary.

Doing so would deprive the god of the useful means to make people fall in love or fall out of love, now visibly annoyed and irritated enough to try in vain to get his weapon back.

For this particular subject it is therefore easy to advance the hypothesis that it is an allegory of conjugal love, in which Venus, deprived of her powers by her little son, therefore has the role of protector of marital happiness - and fidelity -.

It is a work of great charm, both in terms of its meaning and pictorial quality, both characteristics that denote its proximity to the best Bolognese production of the first half of the 17th century, characterised by a harmonious fusion of the teachings inherited from the classicism of Guido Reni with the predominant teachings of Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, known as Guercino (Cento 1591 - Bologna 1666), to whose prestigious workshop we are inclined to attribute this painting.

These considerations are corroborated by looking in detail at the stylistic aspects as well as the execution, quality and the fact that there are no closely analogous images.

Although it is far from easy to pinpoint a name in the list of authors gravitating to the workshop's intentions, we are inclined to identify it in the nephew and close collaborator Benedetto Gennari (Cento, 1633 - Bologna,1715). The way of portraying the characters, with such a realistic style that breaks away from the Baroque taste for embellishing the figures with shapes and colours, and the use of light falling from above, proposing chiaroscuro effects, are characteristics that hark back to the mould of Guercino.


ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

The painting is sold complete with an attractive gilded frame and is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity and descriptive iconographic card.

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