Venus and her lovers birth tray
Type:
Panel paintings
Date:
ca. 1390
Location or Findspot (Modern-Day Country):
Italy
Dimensions:
diam. 51 cm
Description:
This dodecagonal panel painting focuses on Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty. Venus is shown here being venerated by lovers and warriors drawn from ancient, biblical, and medieval literature—from left to right Achilles, Tristan, Lancelot, Samson, Paris, and Troilus. She is linked to them by golden rays emitted from her pubic area, a visual metaphor for the power of love across time and space.
The panel is a desco da parto (birth tray), a wooden tray used to bring food and gifts to elite Italian women to encourage or reward a successful home birth. After the birth, the tray could hold useful items for the new mother and later be hung on a wall. Childbirth was always dangerous for medieval women (and their babies), but these birth trays began to be produced around 1370, a generation after the Black Death underscored the precarity of life. They continued to be produced until the sixteenth century, with a wide range of secular and religious iconographies but a standardized form: either twelve- or sixteen-sided or, after ca. 1430, round.
The panel is a desco da parto (birth tray), a wooden tray used to bring food and gifts to elite Italian women to encourage or reward a successful home birth. After the birth, the tray could hold useful items for the new mother and later be hung on a wall. Childbirth was always dangerous for medieval women (and their babies), but these birth trays began to be produced around 1370, a generation after the Black Death underscored the precarity of life. They continued to be produced until the sixteenth century, with a wide range of secular and religious iconographies but a standardized form: either twelve- or sixteen-sided or, after ca. 1430, round.
Relevant Textbook Chapter(s):
10
Repository and Online Resources:
• The birth tray is at the Musée du Louvre (RF.2089).
Image Credits:
Linda Safran
