print
- Museum number
- Ii,16.2
- Description
-
Venus is standing holding an arrow in her extended left hand and a fold of drapery in her right; Cupid standing in front of, and looking up towards, her holding an arrow in his right hand; a column at far left
Engraving
- Production date
- 1515-1530
- Dimensions
-
Height: 96 millimetres
-
Width: 61 millimetres
- Curator's comments
- These figures are taken from the same in the 'Judgement of Paris' by Marcantonio Raimondi, see H,2.24.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1830
- Acquisition notes
- The portfolio Ii,16 contained only 15 prints, and was described in the 1837 inventory as a 'portfolio of some Italian prints bought at sales by J T Smith'. All the prints were in fact purchased at the sale of the collection of Sir Thomas Lawrence in May 1830, as they all have Lawrence's oval collector's mark, and the marked catalogue records the BM as the purchaser. In June 1830 Smith reported to the Trustees that 'the Marcantonio and Rembrandt portfolios have been highly improved from the sale of Sir Thomas Lawrence's prints' and that he had spent at the sale £100 with the permission of the Trustees. None of these purchases were recorded in the volume of the register that covers the years before 1837.
The Lawrence stamp proves that this is the missing Ii,16.2 in a portfolio of acquisitions of Marcantonio and his school made by J T Smith at the Lawrence sale in 1830, where it is described as 'Venus & Cupid'.
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- Ii,16.2
- Additional IDs
-
Other BM number: 1980,U.1