Venus at her toilet.

Pellegrini's Venus at her Toilet, painted around 1701 at the outset of his international career, depicts the goddess of love attending to her beauty — a subject with ancient precedent in European painting and a natural vehicle for the erotic sensibility of early Rococo decoration. Pellegrini's early work was already attracting the attention of English and northern European collectors, and mythological subjects like this were standard elements of his production. The work demonstrates his formative Venetian style before his long periods abroad.

Venus is shown at her dressing table with attendant cupids and mirror, the composition organised around the goddess's warm, luminous figure. Pellegrini's early handling has a slightly heavier, more Baroque quality than his later work but already shows the warmth and elegance that would define his mature manner. The handling of the attendant cupids and the mirror is particularly confident.