Venus and Cupid

Venus and Cupid at the Gemäldegalerie Berlin (1742) depicts the goddess of love with her son in one of the most fundamental mythological pairings in Western art, their relationship the central axis of the entire Ovidian world of desire and consequence. By 1742 Boucher was at the height of his career, simultaneously a sought-after court painter and the leading designer for the royal manufactories, and his Venus compositions were among his most commercially reliable productions. The Gemäldegalerie Berlin's acquisition of this work documents the flow of French Rococo painting into German collections through the art market — Prussian and Bavarian courts both maintained strong interests in French decorative culture. Boucher's Venus type — pink-skinned, full-figured, surrounded by attendant putti — was so thoroughly identified with the Rococo aesthetic that subsequent generations of critics used it as the primary example of the style's decorative superficiality, while more sympathetic interpreters recognized its formal accomplishment.

The intimate composition presents mother and son with sensuous warmth. Boucher's handling of flesh tones creates a quintessentially Rococo image.