Venus and Cupid (verso)

Venus and Cupid (verso), painted around 1805 and now in Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, is a verso study on the reverse of the Centaurs and Nymphs canvas — both sides of the same painted support preserving Etty's mythological subjects from his early career. Venus and Cupid, the goddess of love with her son and attribute, was among Etty's most revisited subjects throughout his career, and this early verso sketch represents the beginning of a long engagement with the figure type. The deliberate use of both sides of the canvas surface reflects Etty's economical approach to his materials in the early career period, before commercial success gave him resources for separate canvases for each study. Bristol City Museum's preservation of both sides of this double-painted canvas allows reconstruction of Etty's working economy and the relationship between different mythological subjects produced in close temporal proximity.

Fluid brushwork defines the goddess and her son with minimal detail, the warm tonality and confident outlines suggesting this was a rapid study capturing a pose from Etty's imagination or from a studio model.