Venus and Cupid
Factory:
Höchst Porcelain Manufactory
Modeller:
Melchior, Johann Peter
Hard-paste porcelain, painted in enamels, and gilded
Hard-paste porcelain, press-moulded, and painted overglaze in blue, greyish-green, green, yellow, pink, dark pink, pale purple, a little red, several shades of brown, and grey enamels, and gilded. The open underside of the base is glazed and has a round ventilation hole under Venus, a smaller one under Cupid and an opening through to the top of the tree trunk. The oblong base has an irregularly shaped rocky edge, painted round the edges in green and grey-green to resemble grass; a few roots project at the viewer's right end. It rises up into a low rock, with a projecting tree stump and roots at the viewer's left at the back. Venus sits on the rock with her left leg bent and right straight. She extends her right arm behind Cupid and looks down towards him. Her right elbow is bent and she holds her hand over a flower resting on the drape which passes around her thighs and falls down the back of the rock . She has delicately tinted cheeks, brown eyes, a pale red mouth, and brown hair dressed in a high knot, and wears a narrow frontlet decorated with a bunch of flowers. Her white drape is striped in blue with a purple geometrical pattern between the stripes. Cupid sits on a rock to her right (viewer's left) holding up his arms towards her. He is nude and has a quiver suspended on a purple ribbon. His golden bow rests on the ground below Venus' right leg. The base between Cupid and Venus is strewn with orange and dark pink applied flowers.
History note: Uncertain before donor, Mrs W.D. (Frances Louis) Dickson
Given by Mrs W.D. Dickson
Height: 20 cm
Height: 7⅞ in
Length: 23.5 cm
Length: 9¼ in
Method of acquisition: Given (1950) by Dickson, W. D. (Frances Louisa), Mrs
18th Century, third quarter
Circa
1765
CE
-
1770
CE
Johann Peter Melchior worked at Höchst as a modeller between 1767 and 1779 when he moved to Frankenthal
Decoration
composed of
enamels
Deocration
composed of
gold
Moulding
: Hard-paste porcelain, press-moulded, assembled, glazed, painted in blue, greyish-green, green, yellow, pink, dark pink, pale purple, a little red, several shades of brown, and grey enamels, and lightly gilt.
Glazing
Accession number: C.57-1950
Primary reference Number: 140326
Stable URI
Owner or interested party:
The Fitzwilliam Museum
Associated department:
Applied Arts
This record can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:
The Fitzwilliam Museum (2024) "Venus and Cupid" Web page available at: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/140326 Accessed: 2024-12-31 08:59:42
To cite this record on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:
{{cite web|url=https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/140326
|title=Venus and Cupid
|author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2024-12-31 08:59:42|publisher=The
University of Cambridge}}
To call these data via our API (remember this needs to be authenticated) you can use this code snippet:
https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/api/v1/objects/object-140326
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