Pictures Around Cromer
Venus and Mars

Sandro Botticelli

Venus and Mars, Sandro Botticelli, on garden Street

Venus and Mars

Sandro Botticelli

Venus and Mars can be found outside Cromer Community Centre on Garden Street

Sandro Botticelli Venus and Mars, 1485
Sandro Botticelli, about 1445–1510
Venus and Mars, about 1485
Tempera and oil on poplar, 69.2 x 173.4 cm
Bought, 1874
© The National Gallery, London

Venus and Mars, 1485

Sandro Botticelli

Tempera and oil on poplar, 69.2 x 173.4 cm

Venus, the goddess of love, looks over at her lover Mars. She is alert and dignified, while he – the god of war – is utterly lost in sleep. He doesn‘t even notice the chubby satyr (half child, half goat) blowing a conch shell in his ear.

This picture was probably ordered to celebrate a marriage, and the unusual shape suggests it was a spalliera, a panel set into the wall of a room. These panels were ordered to decorate the semi-public reception room known as a camera (a sort of bedchamber).

Read more at NationalGallery.org.uk

Detail from Sandro Botticelli, Self-portrait from the Adoration of the Magi © The Art Archive/Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence/Alfredo Dagli Orti

Sandro Botticelli

At the height of his fame, the Florentine painter and draughtsman Sandro Botticelli was one of the most esteemed artists in Italy. His graceful pictures of the Madonna and Child, his altarpieces and his life-size mythological paintings, such as ‘Venus and Mars’, were immensely popular in his lifetime.

Read more at NationalGallery.org.uk