
Venus, fully dressed and wide awake, watches Mars sprawl in exhausted sleep while infant satyrs play with his lance and helmet. The long format suggests it was set into panelling or furniture in a bedroom, probably to celebrate a marriage. Its learned joke, love disarming war, draws on Lucian's description of a lost ancient painting.
Look closer
Wasps buzz around Mars's head from a nest in the tree, perhaps a pun on the Vespucci family, whose name means 'little wasps'. A satyr blows a conch in his ear.
Looks like this
Compared by a vision model











