Titian. Worship of Venus (also called Amores), Prado, Madrid. probably 1517-1519.

Painted for the camerino d'alabastro of Alfonso d'Este.

The painting shows a grassy landscape bounded on the viewer's left by a small grove of apple trees, then a knoll with small houses above a lake, and on the horizon a tower. On the right a statue of Venus stands on a high plinth against shadowy trees. Four winged children fly around the trees, plucking apples: in the foreground, a large group of winged children play. Many gather apples, others embrace, wrestle, shoot arrows, or simply gambol. Two young women enter the scene from the right, immediately in front of the statue of Venus. One, running forward, rises her head to look in a mirror at something out of the picture, and the other looks back over her shoulder.

Detail of winged children (erotes/cupids).

Detail of women.

Titian. The Bacchanal of the Andrians, The Prado, Madrid. 1520s. (It is unclear whether this was painted before or after Bacchus and Ariadne.)

Painted for the camerino d'alabastro of Alfonso d'Este.

This complicated composition can be roughly divided into three levels: in the foreground are four figures arranged in two groups; immediately behind them come a dense series of figures, again divided into two groups, and, finally, several background details.

Foreground: A nude woman lies asleep in the right corner of the painting. Beside her a small boy lifts his garment to urinate. Further to the left, two women with contemporary Italian clothes and hairstyles recline on the grass. Each holds a recorder, and a sheet of music lies in front of them. One of the pair holds a shallow dish out behind her into the second level.

Middle ground: The dish is filled from a pitcher held by a nude man. Near him are four other nude or seminude men , one carrying a large jug, one drinking, one lurching drunkenly, and one reclining behind the foreground women. He touches one of the women's ankles, but looks up at the figures in the middle ground on the right. These figures wear elegant but abbreviated garments. One, in the center, seems to lurch. Behind him, another holds up a glass pitcher filled with wine so that it is silhouetted against the white clouds filling much of the sky. At right, a young man and woman dance.

Background: Behind the dancers, at the top of a low hill, an old man stretches out in sleep. In the space between the nude and the clothed figures a landscape opens up, and we can see a ship sailing away in the distance, almost merging into the clouds.