The Doves

The Doves, painted around 1805 and now in Nottingham Museums, depicts the birds associated with Venus — doves were the goddess of love's sacred animals, pulling her chariot and inhabiting her temples — as a decorative subject that may be either an independent still life or a study for a mythological composition. The connection between doves and Venusian love was established in classical mythology and perpetuated through the entire European painting tradition; doves in a painting by Etty almost certainly carry mythological reference rather than simple natural history observation. The warm palette applied to the birds' plumage anticipates the same coloring Etty used for human flesh, reflecting his consistent approach to pictorial warmth across subject categories. Nottingham Museums' British art holdings reflect the civic collecting tradition of a major Midlands city, and the Etty works in the collection represent the Victorian institutional recognition of his place in the British academic tradition.

Executed with sensuous flesh painting and attention to rich Venetian coloring, the work reveals William Etty's characteristic approach to composition and surface. The treatment of light and the careful modulation of color create visual richness within a unified pictorial scheme.