Venus Healing Aeneas

c. 1820

Merry Joseph Blondel (French, 1781–1853)

In this study for a larger painting of a scene from Virgil’s Aeneid, Merry Joseph Blondel depicted the epic poem’s protagonist, Aeneas, wounded and having dragged himself away from the battlefield. Hidden in a divine mist, the goddess Venus—Aeneas’s mother—and the river god Numicus come to his rescue. Numicus holds the hero as Venus administers a healing balm. The following lines from A. S. Kline’s translation of the poem describe the scene:

This Venus brought, her face veiled in dark mist,
this, with its hidden curative powers, she steeped
in river water, poured into a glittering basin, and sprinkled
there healing ambrosial juice and fragrant panacea.

Status: On View, Gallery 219
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Merry Joseph Blondel
Title: Venus Healing Aeneas
Place: France (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1815–1825
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: Signed with the monogram: JBL
Dimensions: 27 × 21.5 cm (10 5/8 × 8 1/2 in.); Framed: 39.4 × 33.7 × 7 cm (15 1/2 × 13 1/4 × 2 3/4 in.)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by Pamela and Roger Hull through the Old Masters Society
Reference Number: 2015.412
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/226550/manifest.json

Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Catalogue des Oeuvres de Feu Hippolyte Le Bas et Des Tableaux & Dessins Anciens & Modernes Gravures, Lithographies, Bronzes, Platres, etc., sales cat. (Hôtel Drouot, December 2–4, 1867), n.pag., lot 92.
Artcurial Auction at Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Tableaux et Dessins Anciens et du XIXe Siècle, sales cat. (Hôtel Drouot, February 19, 2010), p. 50, lot 199.

Hippolyte Lebas (died 1867), Paris, by 1867; sold, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, December 2–4, 1867, lot 93, as Sujet mythologique, to private collection, France. Sold, small regional auction, France, artist listed as anonymous, to private collection, by 2010; sold, Artcurial auction at Hôtel Drouot, Paris, February 19, 2010, lot 199, as Venus protégeant le corps d’Hector de la corruption, to Caylus Anticuaios, Madrid; sold to Art Institute of Chicago, 2015.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.