Minneapolis Institute of Art

Venus and Cupid

Master HB with a Griffin's Head; Probably active in the workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder

Date

c. 1550

Medium

Oil on panel (fir)

Department

European Art

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

The figure of Venus, goddess of love, is based on a print from Albrecht Dürer’s treatise on human proportion (Nuremberg, 1528). But Dürer’s figural ideal is transformed into something wholly original in the hands of the Master HB, a German painter known today only by his initials. HB paints the bodies of Venus and Cupid as though they are constructed of strange, tectonic shapes; their bodies twist and turn in contorted positions in a compressed space in the picture’s foreground. These unnaturally muscled bodies and mannered poses are meant by the artist to demonstrate his unique imagination and skills. Germany, Europe

The authoritative record is held by Minneapolis Institute of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.