Beschreibung:
A Botticellesque ‘Venus among Cupids’ in the National Gallery (no. 916) now attributed to Jacopo del Sellajo (pl. III) attracted my attention when I saw it again in July last for the similarity of the composition to the familiar group of Terra Mater and the children as represented on innumerable Roman monuments—a transcript almost of its rendering in the mosaic recently discovered at Antioch by the American mission (pl. iv, i). The influence of the ancient motive is likewise apparent in Sellajo's—or another's —repetition of the ‘Venus and Cupids’ motive in the Louvre (no. 1299—pl. v), and it makes itself felt, though less obviously perhaps, in Botticelli's ‘Venus and Mars’ in the National Gallery (no. 915—pi. vi). The un-Venus like character of Sellajo's goddess had, as I subsequently discovered, struck A. L. Mayer, who thought that the picture might represent an allegory of Fertility (Fruchtbarkeit)–an excellent suggestion, supported by the evidence of the bunch of grapes, from which, however, he omitted to draw the necessary conclusion. The dependence of Botticelli's picture upon an antique model has long been admitted, but the incongruity between the Mars who lies steeped in voluptuous slumber and the demure Florentine lady who faces him in seemly half-sitting posture had scarcely been noted : she, too, recalls Terra Mater, rather than any softly reposing nymph or Venus.