BOUCHER, François
(b. 1703, Paris, d. 1770, Paris)

Venus Demanding Arms from Vulcan for Aeneas

1732
Oil on canvas, 252 x 175 cm
Musée du Louvre, Paris

In the Aeneid (8:370-385) Virgil tells how Venus asked Vulcan to make a set of armour for Aeneas, her son, when he was about to go to war in Latium. The outcome of Aeneas' victory was the founding of a Trojan settlement on the Tiber from which, according to the legend, the Romans descended.

This is an early version of the subject often treated by Boucher.

You can view other representations of Venus and Vulcan in the Web Gallery of Art.