Venus Lamenting the Death of Adonis

As a draughtsman, Giuseppe Cades developed a personal form of Neoclassicism in which he combined his admiration for classical antiquity with the art of Raphael. Typical of this drawing is the mixture of heroism and irony. The felled hero Adonis, the epitome of masculine beauty, is lamented by a rather voluptuous Venus. Cades drew the scene for an extant painting in Palazzo Ruspoli in Rome.