An Allegory (Venus, Cupid, Time and Folly) (c. 1540-45) by Agnolo Bronzino

An Allegory (Venus, Cupid, Time and Folly) - Agnolo Bronzino - c.1542

Artwork Information

TitleAn Allegory (Venus, Cupid, Time and Folly)
ArtistAgnolo Bronzino
Datec.1542
MediumOil on Panel
Dimensions116.2 x 146.1 cm
Art MovementMannerism (Late Renaissance)
Current LocationNational Gallery, London
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About An Allegory (Venus, Cupid, Time and Folly)

Agnolo Bronzino’s “An Allegory with Venus and Cupid” is an oil-on-wood painting that measures 146.1 × 116.2 centimeters (57.5 × 45.7 inches). Created in around 1540-45, its intended meaning is open to interpretation, and it contains hidden meanings, moral messages, and sexually explicit imagery. The painting depicts Venus holding a golden apple, with Cupid entwined around her, as well as other figures representing passion, pleasure, fraud, jealousy, and play.

It is likely that Bronzino was commissioned to create the painting as a gift for King Francis I of France by Cosimo de’ Medici since the painter worked as Cosimo I de’ Medici’s court painter during his entire life in Florence. The complex symbolism of the artwork suggests that it is symbolic of the aftermath of incestuous actions or has connections to mythology or literature. Given this complexity laid out through explicit substances and expressions concealed within iconography throughout the composition’s spaces.

Overall,”An Allegory with Venus and Cupid” stands out for its use of colors such as blue accents evoking calmness among reds relating to passion or corporeal exaltation.Vasari attributes Bronzino’s artistic choices toward analyzing courtly situations involving relationships from which perhaps Bronzino appreciated while completing this artwork exercise due to know portraits by history that were also courtly pieces before then.Testifying perhaps why allegorical workpieces still prove the perfect fit in political circles today allows interpretations laced with subtleties accompanied by various layers giving them a grandiose touch unattainable using otherwise straightforward means alone since they come fully loaded with personal biases towards their significance detailed throughout their motif components along their pictorial construction all intermixed into one great masterpiece converging into beauty in unity expressionism nonetheless seen poetically on canvas

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