Art Institute of Chicago

Venus Healing Aeneas

Merry Joseph Blondel (French, 1781–1853)

Date

c. 1820

Medium

Oil on canvas

Culture

France

Department

Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

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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