Toilette of Venus

从1612年开始，西蒙·沃伊特在意大利受训并生活了15年，1627年被召回法国，成为路易十三的主要画家。Vouet负责向法国介绍巴洛克风格的绘画元素，通常与卡拉瓦乔和彼得·保罗·鲁本斯等艺术家有关。在《维纳斯的梳妆台》中，古罗马的爱情女神在镜子里欣赏自己，而“阿莫里尼”（“小爱”或丘比特）则在附近玩耍。这幅画的确切含义的线索来自于法国蒙彼利埃的《法布雷博物馆》中的一部类似作品《审慎的寓言》。在那幅画里，镜子里反射出的是一幅理想化的奥地利安妮的肖像，当时她是Vouet的赞助人路易十三的遗孀。同一张脸出现在辛辛那提的照片上，这张照片一度属于18世纪法国国王路易十五的情妇杜巴里夫人，当这幅画挂在辛辛那提的辛顿酒店时，维纳斯身上的红色帷幔完全遮住了她的身体。直到这幅画被X光检查，斗篷才被发现是十八世纪末或十九世纪初的一个附加品。一丝不苟的清洁暴露了维纳斯，正如你最初描绘的那样。

Simon Vouet, who trained and lived in Italy for fifteen years beginning in 1612, was summoned back to France in 1627 to be the principal painter to Louis XIII. Vouet was responsible for introducing to France elements of the high Baroque style of painting usually associated with artists such as Caravaggio and Peter Paul Rubens. In "The Toilette of Venus," the ancient Roman goddess of love admires herself in a mirror, while "amorini" (“little loves” or cupids) play nearby. A clue to the picture’s precise meaning comes from a similar work, an "Allegory of Prudence," in the Musée Fabre, Montpellier, France. In that painting, the face reflected in the mirror is an idealized image of Anne of Austria, then the widow of Vouet’s patron Louis XIII. The same face appears in the Cincinnati picture, which at one time belonged to Madame du Barry, mistress of the eighteenth-century French king Louis XV.When this painting hung in Cincinnati's Sinton Hotel, Venus wore a red drapery that completely covered her body. It wasn't until the painting was X-rayed that the cape was revealed as a late eighteenth- or early nineteenth-century addition. Meticulous cleaning exposed Venus as Vouet originally painted her.