How you can use this image
This image can be used for non-commercial research or private study purposes, and other UK exceptions to copyright permitted to users based in the United Kingdom under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended and revised. Any other type of use will need to be cleared with the rights holder(s).
Review the copyright credit lines that are located underneath the image, as these indicate who manages the copyright (©) within the artwork, and the photographic rights within the image.
The collection that owns the artwork may have more information on their own website about permitted uses and image licensing options.
Review our guidance pages which explain how you can reuse images, how to credit an image and how to find images in the public domain or with a Creative Commons licence available.
Buy a print or image licence
You can purchase this reproduction
If you have any products in your basket we recommend that you complete your purchase from Art UK before you leave our site to avoid losing your purchases.
Notes
Add or edit a note on this artwork that only you can see. You can find notes again by going to the ‘Notes’ section of your account.
This picture was probably ordered to celebrate a marriage, and the unusual shape suggests it was a spalliera, a panel set into the wall of a room. These panels were ordered to decorate the semi-public reception room known as a camera (a sort of bedchamber).
Botticelli’s picture is colourful and amusing but was also very fashionable – the cultures of Ancient Greece and Rome were admired by the elite in Renaissance Florence. Mars’ well-defined body refers deliberately to ancient sculptures. It might have had another function: women gazing upon beautiful male bodies were thought to be more likely to give birth to boys, essential for continuing the family line.
Title
Venus and Mars
Date
about 1485
Medium
Tempera and oil on poplar
Measurements
H 69.2 x W 173.4 cm
Accession number
NG915
Acquisition method
Bought, 1874
Work type
Painting
The National Gallery, London
Trafalgar Square, London, Greater London WC2N 5DN England
-
Portrait of a Lady Victoria and Albert Museum -
The Descent of the Holy Ghost Birmingham Museums Trust -
Last Moments of the Magdalene The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust) -
Fragment of a Cartoon of the 'Adoration of the Magi' The Fitzwilliam Museum -
Two Fragments of a Cartoon of 'The Adoration of the Magi' The Fitzwilliam Museum -
The Virgin Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child National Galleries of Scotland: National -
Adoration of the Kings The National Gallery, London - 31 more
Stories
-
Sandro Botticelli: master of the Florentine RenaissanceCaroline Campbell
-
How to answer every art question on University ChallengeBobby Seagull
-
The art of lying: reclining figures through historyLydia Figes and Andrew Shore
-
