Cupid preparing his Bow (after Van Dyck)

Jacob Huysmans (Antwerp c.1630 – London 1696). Oil painting on canvas, Cupid preparing his Bow (after Van Dyck), by Jacob Huysmans (Antwerp c.1630 – London 1696). The pretext for the picture appears to be the passage in Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book V, vv.355 ff., Pluto having surfaced from the underworld to circumnavigate Sicily in his chariot to see what damage had been wrought by his struggles to free himself, is sighted by Venus. She promptly urges her son Cupid, to bring about the union of Pluto and Proserpine. Cupid then “selected one of his thousand arrows, the sharpest and surest, and most obedient to the bow. Then, bending his pliant bow against his knee, he struck Pluto to the heart with the barbed shaft. Kingston Lacy Estate, Dorset (Accredited Museum)