Venus and Cupid Riding Dolphins

Marco Dente was an Italian printmaker who primarily created reproductive engravings after works by Renaissance artist Raphael and his circle. “Venus and Cupid Riding Dolphins” reproduces a contemporaneous fresco Raphael painted in the stufetta (or bathroom), of Cardinal Bernardo Dovizi da Bibbiena’s apartments in the Vatican Palace. A scholar of classical antiquity and a patron of the arts, the Cardinal personally chose mildly erotic female nudes to decorate this private space. The mythological subject of Venus, goddess of love, accompanied by her son Cupid and a sea creature, was a popular theme during the Renaissance.