Landscape with the Story of Venus and Adonis
1589
- Medium
- Gouache heightened with gold, on vellum
- Dimensions
- 20.6 × 25.7 cm
- Status
- In Museum Collection
- Collect24 Art ID
- C24-209546
Hans Bol painted this unusual miniature in two parts: the central landscape, painted on parchment mounted on wood, and the framing design, painted directly on wood. Both parts tell the story of the beautiful youth Adonis from Ovid's *Metamorphoses.* In the main panel, Venus and Adonis embrace before he leaves on the hunt shown in the distance, in which he is killed by a boar. Clockwise from left, the frame's ovals show subsidiary incidents: Adonis's mother Myrrha commits incest with her father; turned into the myrrh tree as punishment, Myrrha bears their son, Adonis; Venus is struck with love for Adonis; blood springing from the dead Adonis turns into the anemone flower. In the frame, Bol combined the cartouches and trophies of a three-dimensional picture frame with illusionistic borders reminiscent of manuscript illumination. His materials--opaque color and gold paint on parchment--also follow the tradition of manuscript illumination.
Provenance
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Registry history
- 1589 — Recorded in the collection of J. Paul Getty Museum — drawings
Registered on Collect24
The identity of the collector is never published. Purchase information, documents and the exact location of the artwork remain private.
Ownership not yet verified on Collect24
This artwork is documented in the Global Art Registry, but no Collect24 account is linked to it as the owner. Claiming keeps this record and its Collect24 Art ID — nothing is created a second time.
Do you own or represent this artwork? Claim this artwork →Auction history
Public sale records matched to this work. Ownership is never disclosed.
Loading sale records…