"the image in which love returns and venus the mother of love". The painting depicts statues of the skeletal figures of aphrodite and eros, evoking the theme of death in contrast to life and love. It may also suggest a contrast between the pagan gods, human vanity and sensuousness, on the one side, and a pure divine love according to the christian neoplatonic ideals, on the other. The latin phrases are from poems of virgil, propertius and ovid:
"nunc seio quid sit amor. "
"quicumque ille fuit, puerum qui pinxit amores/nonne putas miras hunc habuisse manus?"
"ubi sunt tua tella cupido?"
"o formose puer, nimium ne crede colori. "
"tenera cum matre cupido. "
"longus amor tales corpus tenuavit in usus. "
"exorata meis illum cytherea camoenis,
at quondam noctem simulacra que vana timebam. ". Date: between 1545 and 1573.
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