The Birth of Venus (c. 1516): Art, History and Details

The Birth of Venus (c. 1516) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Marco Dente (Italian, c. 1486–1527); Raphael (Italian, 1483–1520).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Marco Dente was one of several printmakers who re-created Raphael’s designs as engravings. Both of Dente’s compositions after Raphael relate to the latter’s frescos in the stufetta, or bathroom, of Cardinal Bernardo Dovizi da Bibbiena’s apartments in the Vatican Palace. A scholar of classical antiquity and a patron of the arts, the Cardinal personally chose these mildly erotic female nudes, a common subject in bathroom decorations, even for members of the clergy. Depicted here is Venus, the goddess of love and fertility. According to the myth of her birth, she was created in sea foam from the castrated genitals of the primeval sky god Uranus. In the clouds, Uranus’s son Saturn, the god of time, prepares to mutilate his father with a curved sword. Meanwhile, Venus steps out of frothy waves onto a seashell.

Object facts

• Title: The Birth of Venus
• Date: c. 1516
• Creator attribution: Marco Dente (Italian, c. 1486–1527); Raphael (Italian, 1483–1520)
• Culture: Italy
• Type: Print
• Technique: engraving
• Dimensions: Sheet: 26.3 x 17.5 cm (10 3/8 x 6 7/8 in.)
• Collection: PR - Engraving
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1923.1101

Collection credit

Gift of Ralph King

Further reading listed by the museum

• Zeitler, Kurt, and Pinakothek der Moderne (Munich, Germany). Den Menschen Vor Augen : KüNstlerische Strategien Seiner Darstellung in Italienischen Zeichnungen 1450-1750. Berlin, München: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2025.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.