Venus at the Forge of Vulcan

This anonymous drawing, which depicts Vulcan in his forge with Venus and Cupid assisting him by fashioning arrows, was thought to be by a sixteenth-century Flemish hand before it entered the Morgan's collection. It is now considered to have been produced in the same era, but not necessarily by a Flemish artist.<br>The drawing's trapezoidal shape suggests it was perhaps a sketch for a mural, or more likely a ceiling decoration. Depictions of this subject were a common trope during the Renaissance. A comparable drawing attributed to Gianfrancesco Penni, a member of Raphael's workshop, has a similar composition (Musée du Louvre, inv. 618). Penni's drawing was for a lost wall painting for Giovanantonio Battiferro's house in the Borgo in Rome. Images of Vulcan's forge were sometimes employed in allegories of the elements.