L’educazione di Amore (Venere, Mercurio e Cupido)

Antonio Allegri, detto il Correggio (Correggio, 1489 – 1534) da

The Education of Love

(Venus, Mercury and Cupid/Love)

by Antonio Allegri, known as Correggio

(Correggio, 1489 – Correggio, 1534)

Oil on canvas

157 x 93 cm.
Framed 175 x 112 cm.

D26-005 € 19.900 Request information

This antique painting, of excellent quality, is a valuable study of the work of Antonio Allegri (Correggio, c. 1489 - 1534), depicting “The Education of Love”, preserved in the National Gallery in London (oil on canvas, 155x92 cm).

Against a backdrop of dense vegetation, a winged female figure, traditionally recognised as Venus, leads the young Cupid to Mercury so that he may instruct him; the iconography of Mercury is essentially traditional, both in terms of his elaborate headdress, the petasos, and his winged sandals for flying.

The history of this work is fascinating and noteworthy. Originally painted for the illustrious collection of the Mantuan nobleman Nicola Maffei, it passed in the early 17th century to the Gonzaga family, with whom the Maffeis had close ties, and then, in 1628, it left Italy to enter the collections of Charles I of England. Thanks to these transitions, among the most famous collections in Europe, it achieved immediate success and exceptional fame as early as the 16th century.

Desired and praised over the centuries, the work fascinated many artists who wanted to pay explicit homage to it, often to satisfy the requests of the most illustrious art collectors of the time, who wanted to own their own copy.

Other copies by Correggio are known besides the one in the National Gallery, including the one in the Château de Chenonceau in France (Ref. 1), which can be dated to between the 17th and 18th centuries and is very similar in style to the painting shown here. Another example, also dating from around the 17th century, is in the Stourhead Wiltshire Collection in England (Ref. 6).

We can also mention the canvas on display at the Brukenthal National Museum in Sibiu, Romania, or those executed by other famous painters, either contemporaries or slightly later, demonstrating the early success of the painting: among these are Lambert Sustris (c. 1515-1584), Peter Oliver (1589-1647) and Luca Cambiaso (1527-1585). Below: (Ref. 2/3/4)

The great beauty of the painting also lies in its symbolic value of cultural complacency: the conceptual thesis starts from the little Cupid, capable of striking anyone with his arrows and igniting an uncontrollable passion of love, often causing negative consequences.

Venus, as an intelligent and provident mother, aware of her young son's unreasonableness, decides to educate him preventively in order to guide him towards goodness and teach him to manage his powers of love.

In a context of Renaissance humanism, she therefore chooses the young Mercury as his teacher, as he is an omnipresent and astute god, the bearer of Zeus's will and the knower of all things.

Venus, completely naked here, magnificent in her divine nature, looks at us with satisfaction, thus emphasising the importance of her educational decision, as if to involve us in the warning about Love's excesses, and smiles with satisfaction.