Venus Disarming Cupid. Paired with Sleep of Venus. 1787. Coloured aquatint

This etching is paired with another print. While in the first picture Venus the goddess of love and beauty is sleeping and her son Cupid is furtively stretching his hand toward the weapon that can arouse feelings of love, in the second his mother has taken it away from him. Allegorically, this means that reason has conquered emotion.
The pair of paintings depicting this theme was commissioned by Madame de Pompadour (1751). The fading of the love affair between her and King Louis XV of France was the reason for this choice of subject: Cupid being disarmed.

Jean François Janinet (1752–1814) was a French graphic artist who worked in Paris. He was one of the greatest masters of the coloured aquatint, which was invented in the 18th century.
Jacques Charlier (1720–1790), who created the painting on which the etching was based, was a French painter of miniatures. He also worked in Paris and was one of the best in his field at that time.