Category:Venus and Amor (Hans Holbein der Jüngere - Kunstmuseum Basel)

English:

The first of Holbein's mythological works, this painting shows Venus, the Roman goddess of love, with Amor (Cupid) clutching love's arrow. The work entered the Amerbach collection in 1578, where the inventory records that it depicts a member of the Offenburg family. The model, the same used for Holbein's Darmstadt Madonna and for his Lais of Corinth, has been identified with Magdalena Offenburg, who may have been Holbein's mistress. Holbein's Lais (right) was painted a year or two after Venus and Amor and, in effect, acts as a companion piece, though Holbein does not appear to have originally planned the second painting. In the later portrait, the sitter is portrayed as a courtesan, who takes money in return for her affections; according to some scholars, it may therefore contain a coded message by Holbein about his relationship with Magdalena. Art historian Peter Claussen, however, dismisses this interpretation as "pure nonsense". Both paintings employ the same colours and depict the same costumes and drapery. Holbein adopts the style of Leonardo and the Lombard muralists, whose work he may have studied during a visit to Italy. He uses Leonardo's sfumato (smoky) technique to smooth the contours of the faces and limbs, as well as the device of the parapet to set the subject back from the viewer. (References: Buck, pp. 44–43; Derek Wilson, Hans Holbein: Portrait of an Unknown Man, London: Pimlico, 2006, ISBN 1844139182, pp. 112–13; Peter Claussen, "Holbein's Career between City and Court", in Müller, Kemperdick, Ainsworth, et al, Hans Holbein: The Basel Years, 1515–1532, Munich: Prestel, 2006, ISBN 9783791360522, p. 47.)