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Lot Essay
The present painting, in its size, composition and technique, appears to match a Venus and Cupid, in the City Art Gallery, York, dated 1628. Both paintings were probably part of a set that might have included an as yet unknown Ceres. An earlier group of three paintings of the same subject, of which the Ceres is dated 1618, is in the Museul Brukenthal, Sibiu (see A. Lowenthal, op. cit., pp. 140-142, nos. A-74-76, figs. 104-106).
The iconography of these sets of paintings, representing the three life supporting deities, from whom come gifts of the earth, the vine and love, illustrates a line from Terence's The Eunuch (4:732) 'Sine Cerere et Libero friget Venus', which implies that love grows cold without the stimulus of wine and feasting. As a Christian interpretation, the ritual of the sacramental combination of bread and wine is a condition of divine love, signified by Venus.
Two such sets of paintings are described as having belonged to Wtewael's descendants, although one is circular in format. However, it is impossible to say whether the other set described the present painting and its companion, the York Venus and Cupid, or the Sibiu set, or indeed a third as yet unknown grouping. A circular Bacchus in the Musée de Moulins (inv. no. 67.1.1; Lowenthal, op. cit., no. A-77), which is less painterly than the present work, may be part of the set of 'three roundels' that was bequeathed by Peter Wtewael to his niece, Aletta, in 1661.
The iconography of these sets of paintings, representing the three life supporting deities, from whom come gifts of the earth, the vine and love, illustrates a line from Terence's The Eunuch (4:732) 'Sine Cerere et Libero friget Venus', which implies that love grows cold without the stimulus of wine and feasting. As a Christian interpretation, the ritual of the sacramental combination of bread and wine is a condition of divine love, signified by Venus.
Two such sets of paintings are described as having belonged to Wtewael's descendants, although one is circular in format. However, it is impossible to say whether the other set described the present painting and its companion, the York Venus and Cupid, or the Sibiu set, or indeed a third as yet unknown grouping. A circular Bacchus in the Musée de Moulins (inv. no. 67.1.1; Lowenthal, op. cit., no. A-77), which is less painterly than the present work, may be part of the set of 'three roundels' that was bequeathed by Peter Wtewael to his niece, Aletta, in 1661.