1516
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Dominant colour
Venus Wounded by a Rose's Thorn is a 1516 by Marco Dente, a Renaissance work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
A woman sits on the ground, pulling a thorn from her foot while a rabbit watches. She’s naked except for a thin cloth draped over her lap. The scene feels still, like a quiet moment in the woods. This painting shows Venus, the Roman goddess of love, but not in a grand myth—just hurt and alone. The rabbit at her feet is an old symbol of fertility, but here it feels out of place, almost like a silent witness. The artist imagined this scene from a poem that never described it. To see more quiet, everyday myths like this, look up *Italy, 16th century*.
This composition alludes to The Lament for Adonis by the Greek poet Bion (active about 100 BCE). In the poem, Venus, distraught by the death of her lover Adonis, wanders barefoot in the woods and is wounded by brambles. Although Bion implores Venus to “weep no longer in the thickets,” the poem does not describe the moment depicted here when she plucks a thorn from her foot, imaginatively conceived as a vehicle to present a classical female nude. The wide-eyed hare near Venus is an ancient symbol of fertility and sexual desire.
The story featured here has been used to explain why some roses are red: they were stained with the blood of Venus after she pricked herself while walking in the forest.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Marco Dente da Ravenna (1493–1527), usually just called Marco Dente, was an Italian engraver born in Ravenna in the latter part of the 15th Century.
See the richer artist page
