Venus en Cupido after 1590

Zacharias Dolendo created this engraving, Venus and Cupid, during the late 16th or early 17th century in the Netherlands. It encapsulates the period's fascination with classical mythology. The image presents Venus, the goddess of love, alongside her son Cupid, within a circular frame inscribed with a Latin phrase meaning, ‘Venus freezes without Ceres and Bacchus’. This suggests that love, represented by Venus, cannot thrive without food and wine, symbolic of prosperity and celebration. The engraving reflects the Dutch Republic's burgeoning economy and its embrace of humanist ideals, promoting earthly pleasures alongside spiritual values. Dolendo, as a prominent engraver, played a crucial role in disseminating such ideas through print culture. This artwork thus provides insights into the social values of the time, where art served as a medium for conveying cultural and philosophical concepts. To fully understand such artwork, one might delve into period literature, emblem books, and the histories of art institutions. The meaning of art is always contingent on its social and institutional context.