Venus Cythereia

A woman stands half-length in a garden holding a bouquet of carnations and roses, a peacock at her side and a harbour city glimpsed in the distance: the figure has been read both as Venus, the goddess of love, and as Flora, the goddess of flowers, and the ambiguity is part of the picture’s seduction. The carnation was thought to stir desire and the peacock to stand for luxury and ostentation, so that the pleasures of scent, sight and beauty are offered together with a moral warning against their idolisation — the double language of the Flemish mannerist nude. Jan Massys, son of Quinten and one of the most refined painters of Antwerp, signed the panel in 1561, and its elegant, sensual style reflects the court taste that linked the Low Countries with France and northern Europe. The painting is held in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm.