![Peter Paul Rubens - Venus and Adonis [mid-1630s]](http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3916/14803776193_6e6b6628fa_o.jpg)
The subject is from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Accidentally pricked by one of Cupid’s arrows, Venus fell in love with the handsome hunter Adonis. Rubens shows their leave-taking, a Renaissance embellishment famously depicted by Titian. With manly indifference to the goddess’s charms and her warnings of danger, Adonis hunted a wild boar and was gored to death. Except for its conclusion, the story was well suited to decorate grand country houses, where the chase occupied noblemen indoors and out.
[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 197.5 x 242.9 cm]