Venus and Mars

c. 1485

Tempera and oil on wood, 69.2 × 173.4 cm · National Gallery, London

A spalliera, a long panel hung at shoulder height or above, probably made to celebrate a marriage and hung in a bedchamber. Love has disarmed war.

Baby satyrs play with Mars’s armour: one wears his helmet, one sits in his breastplate.
One blows a conch shell in Mars’s ear, and he still sleeps.
Wasps swarm near his head, possibly a pun on the Vespucci family name.
Bought by the National Gallery in 1874.

Venus, though married to Vulcan, was the lover of Mars. Renaissance thinkers read the pair as love calming strife.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain