Cupid Untying the Zone of Venus

Reynolds's Cupid Untying the Zone of Venus from around 1788 belongs to a late series of mythological figure paintings — his so-called 'fancy pictures' elevated to classical subjects — that occupied him alongside his formal portraiture. The subject allowed Reynolds to address the female nude, a genre that was problematic for a British painter whose primary market was portraiture: there were no patrons for the grand nudes commissioned by Italian princes, yet Reynolds wished to demonstrate that British painting could compete with Continental tradition on equal terms. His solution was to frame sensual subjects within classical narratives that provided respectable justification for the display of the unclothed body. Contemporaries including Angelica Kauffman and James Barry were making similar attempts to introduce Continental figure subjects to British art, while critics like Horace Walpole remained skeptical that British painting could ever transcend its essentially Protestant, portrait-dominated character. Reynolds painted Cupid Untying the Zone of Venus in the last active years of his career, as his eyesight deteriorated, and the work now in the Hermitage Museum reflects both his sustained ambitions and the limitations that failing health was beginning to impose on his technical execution.

The composition features warm flesh tones set against cool drapery, with Reynolds employing his characteristic use of bituminous pigments that have darkened over time. The soft, sfumato modeling of the figures shows Correggio's influence.