Venus seated on clouds pointing downwards

This sanguine drawing shows the nude goddess Venus reclining on a bank of clouds, her body rendered with the muscular grace typical of the High Renaissance. She points her right hand downward, a gesture relating to her role in the myth of Cupid and Psyche, while several small putti are sketched faintly around her legs and torso. The work is a preparatory sketch for the fresco cycle at the Villa Farnesina in Rome.

In the Neoplatonic framework of the Italian Renaissance, Venus represented both divine beauty (Venus Coelestis) and the generative power of nature (Venus Vulgaris). This image relates to the myth of Psyche, which was interpreted by Renaissance thinkers like Ficino as an allegory for the human soul's descent into the material world and its eventual return to the divine.