Venus, Three Graces, and Cupid Mourning the Death of Adonis

Even in death, Adonis transmits courtly French refinement, traits Étienne Delaune absorbed from King Francis I’s Fontainebleau palace decorations of the mid-1530s. As described in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, an accidental scratch by Cupid’s arrow causes Venus to fall for Adonis. While hunting he is killed by a boar (at left). Atop a frill of clouds, almost as if Adonis is dreaming them, Venus pulls out her hair, her three companions mourn, and Cupid breaks his arrows. Art historians Dora and Irwin Panofsky said Adonis’s story gained appeal after the tragic death of King Francis’s teenage son, the Dauphin, in 1536. This full sheet of paper is very special—a rare survivor from an era when connoisseurs trimmed the margins off prints so they would fit neatly into albums.