The Worship of Venus

In Titian's work, two nymphs, one young and one matronly, are situated to the right of the ceremony, attending to a shrine holding a representation of Venus. The shrine is surrounded by votive tablets. The older woman checks on the decorations with the use of a mirror which she holds high in her extended right hand. The foreground of the canvas is thronged with a swarm of male infants, or putti, who distract themselves in activities such as climbing trees, leaping, flying, gathering apples, lying around, fighting, fondling, shooting arrows and pulling each other's hair.[2] A dam is shown in the middle background, near a sunlit meadow. The far distance is decorated with a mountain and blue sky.

Titian based the image on the writings of the Greek sophist Philostratus.[3] In his "Imagines I, VI", Philostratus wrote, "See cupids are gathering apples: and if there are many of them, do not be surprised...The cupids' quiver are studded with gold, and golden also are the darts in them...they have hung their quivers on the apple trees; and in the grass lie their broidered mantles...Ah, the baskets into which they gather their apples!"[2]

• List of works by Titian
• The Feast of Venus (Rubens)

• Hope, Charles & Fletcher, Jennifer & Dunkerton, Jill. Titian. National Gallery London, 2003. ISBN 1-85709-904-4
• Kaminski, Marion. Titian. Ullmann, 2007. ISBN 978-3-8331-3776-1
• Phillips, Claude. The Earlier Work of Titian. Bastian Books, 2008. ISBN 0-554-38327-6
• (in Italian) Francesco Valcanover, L'opera completa di Tiziano, Rizzoli, Milano 1969.
• (in Italian) Stefano Zuffi, Tiziano, Mondadori Arte, Milano 2008. ISBN 978-88-370-6436-5

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Feast of cupids by Titian in the Museo del Prado.

• Philostratus's Imagines 1.6 (Cupids). Fairbanks translation at the Theoi Classical Texts Library.