Death of Adonis

Sebastiano del Piombo painted the Death of Adonis around 1512, another mythological scene for the Villa Farnesina decorated with Raphael's School of Athens and other masterworks. The subject — the beautiful youth Adonis killed by a boar while hunting, mourned by Venus who loved him — was an allegory of beauty destroyed by violence that appealed to the humanist culture of Agostino Chigi's court. Sebastiano's treatment shows the influence of Giorgione's Venetian coloring — he had studied with Giorgione before moving to Rome in 1511 — combined with the monumental figure scale he was developing through his engagement with Michelangelo's work.

The lush landscape and warm Venetian palette frame the mythological figures, with the reclining Adonis rendered in sculptural terms that reflect the influence of Roman classical reliefs.