Related to a series of drawings of the Origin of the Rose, the first of which is in Copenhagen: Venus pricking her Foot on the Rose, A. V. Schneider, Aus der Sammlung R. Scholz-Forny, Copenhagen, 1937, no. 13. The present composition is a variation on the subject of the drawing sold in these Rooms from the Hatvany collection, 24 June 1980, lot 35, illustrated. Samuel Rogers in Imitations of Drawings in 1778 mentioned four versions of this composition: one engraved by W. W. Ryland in 1763 and now in the Witt collection (no. 208), two in the Reynolds's collection and the Hatvany one, formerly in the Hone collection. A further one is in the Biblioteca Reale, Turin, A. Bertini, I disegni italiani della Biblioteca Reale di Torino, Rome, 1958, no. 608, illustrated.