Annibale Carracci was the great genius of early Baroque painting in Italy, blighted by melancholia at the end of his life but full of promise and invention in his prime. This book concentrates on one of his most ambitious early works, the Venus, Adonis and Cupid in the Prado Museum, Madrid. The paintings has recently been cleaned and restored and this book establishes it as one of the great works of Annibale's career - and as a simply wonderful painting. The subject, which is taken from Ovid's Metamorphoses, was regarded in the Renaissance period as offering the greatest possible scope for a painter's brush - a male and a female nude, strong emotion, pathos, heroism - and, since Adonis was a hunter, dogs as well. The Venus and Adonis, despite its importance in Annibale's oeuvre and its monumental size, has been comparatively little studied.

This book reveals important new information about Annibale Carracci, technically, creatively, stylistically. The book is superbly produced and illustrated. "goregeous photos...The essays are of extraordinary interest...Both sophisticated and accessible, this seems less an exhibition catalogue than a charming invitation to become better acquainted with a painting that, before reading, might not seem extraordinary." (P. Emison, Choice Magazine) The author is Curator of Italian Paintings at the Museo del Prado, Madrid.