Venus and Cupid in a Chariot (1615–17): Art, History and Details

Venus and Cupid in a Chariot (1615–17) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Guercino (Italian, 1591–1666).

The work and its context

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

Giovanni Francesco Barbiere, called Guercino, was a prolific draftsman who used drawing not only to prepare for his many painting commissions but also to record and explore his ideas for future use. This preparatory drawing, made early in his career, reflects Guercino's nonlinear preparatory process and his simultaneous work on different compositions. It relates in format to the painted decoration at the Casa Pannini in his native town of Cento, but it features Venus instead of Diana as in the finished fresco. Guercino's combination of rapid and sure pen lines with ink wash, applied with expert variegation to create deep shadows and bright highlights, is a paradigm of the artist's exuberant high Baroque style.

Object facts

• Title: Venus and Cupid in a Chariot
• Date: 1615–17
• Creator attribution: Guercino (Italian, 1591–1666)
• Culture: Italy, Bologna
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: Pen and brown ink and brush and brown wash over red chalk
• Dimensions: Sheet: 25.5 x 39.4 cm (10 1/16 x 15 1/2 in.)
• Collection: DR - Italian
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1925.1188

A detail from the museum

Two miniscule female forms appear at the bottom edge of the sheet and may pertain to an earlier idea for the composition or to one of many other compositions Guercino conceived for the commission.

Collection credit

Dudley P. Allen Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Washburn, Gordon Bailey, and Agnes Mongan. Master Drawings, Selected from the Museums and Private Collections of America; January, 1935, the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York. [Buffalo, N.Y.]: [F.W. Burow], 1935.
• Kennedy, Ruth Wedgwood. Italian Drawing, 1330-1780, Smith College Museum of Art. [Northampton, MA.]: [Press-work by A. Wilson], 1941.
• Tietze, Hans. European Master Drawings in the United States. New York: J.J. Augustin, 1947.

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.