Art Institute of Chicago
Venus Healing Aeneas
Merry Joseph Blondel (French, 1781–1853)LinkedCulture matchlcp-cc13080df6fc
- Date
- c. 1820
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Culture
- France
- Department
- Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Institution
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Object ID
- 226550
From the Art Institute of Chicago record
In this study for a larger painting of a scene from Virgil’s Aeneid , Merry Joseph Blondel depicted the epic poem’s protagonist, Aeneas, wounded and having dragged himself away from the battlefield. Hidden in a divine mist, the goddess Venus—Aeneas’s mother—and the river god Numicus come to his rescue. Numicus holds the hero as Venus administers a healing balm. The following lines from A. S. Kline’s translation of the poem describe the scene: This Venus brought, her face veiled in dark mist, this, with its hidden curative powers, she steeped in river water, poured into a glittering basin, and sprinkled there healing ambrosial juice and fragrant panacea.
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Provenance & credit
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- Credit line
- Purchased with funds provided by Pamela and Roger Hull through the Old Masters Society
- Provenance
- Hippolyte Lebas (died 1867), Paris, by 1867; sold, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, December 2–4, 1867, lot 93, as Sujet mythologique, to private collection, France. Sold, small regional auction, France, artist listed as anonymous, to private collection, by 2010; sold, Artcurial auction at Hôtel Drouot, Paris, February 19, 2010, lot 199, as Venus protégeant le corps d’Hector de la corruption, to Caylus Anticuaios, Madrid; sold to Art Institute of Chicago, 2015.
Linked open data
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- Object type
- AAT300033618
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