Schmückung der Venus

Adornment of Venus (Schmückung der Venus) in the Bavarian State Painting Collections (c. 1608) belongs to Reni's early Roman mythological production, when he was serving aristocratic patrons who wanted decorative secular paintings alongside the religious commissions that dominated his output. The subject — attendants adorning the goddess of love — was a Venetian inheritance ultimately deriving from Titian's Diana at Her Bath and similar compositions, and had been maintained by Annibale Carracci in his Farnese Gallery decorations. Reni's Roman period mythological paintings show him working through the lessons of both the Venetian coloristic tradition and the classical sculptural sources that surrounded him in Rome. The Bavarian State Painting Collections hold multiple Reni works from this early period, providing a concentrated view of his mythological production before the devotional output that dominated his mature Bolognese career. The composition's female figure type anticipates the Venus paintings that Reni would produce throughout his career.

Venus is presented as the centrepiece of the composition, her form idealised in the classical tradition. Reni's early palette is warmer and richer than his later silver period, and the flesh tones have a sensuous warmth appropriate to the subject. Attendant figures arrange garlands and ornaments around the goddess in a shallow processional arrangement.