Vénus et l'Amour, d'après Cranach 2nd Variation, State II (B.613), 1949

"Vénus et l'Amour, d'après Cranach 2nd Variation, State II (B.613)" is a lithograph created by Pablo Picasso in 1949. From the edition of 55, the artwork is signed 'Picasso' lower right and annotated lower left. The artwork is framed in a custom Spanish-style\closed-corner black and gold frame and has a framed size of 45.5 x 40". The artwork ships framed and accompanied by a certificate of authenticity.

Pablo Picasso’s "Vénus et l’Amour, d’après Cranach. Deuxième variation, deuxième état, 1949," is a powerful example of the artist’s postwar engagement with Old Master imagery and the expressive possibilities of lithography. Inspired by Lucas Cranach the Elder’s Renaissance subject of Venus and Cupid, Picasso does not simply reproduce the historical source. He reimagines it through his own graphic language, transforming a refined mythological image into something direct, physical, and unmistakably modern.

The composition retains the essential relationship between Venus and Cupid: the standing female nude, frontal and statuesque, accompanied by the small god of love holding his arrow. But Picasso strips away decorative elegance and replaces it with tension, immediacy, and bold contrast. Venus appears monumental and grounded, her body defined by vigorous black-and-white passages rather than polished contour. Cupid, smaller and more animated, looks upward with theatrical intensity, creating a charged exchange between the two figures.

This contrast is central to the image. Throughout his career, Picasso returned often to Cupid, Amor, Eros, and related childlike mythic figures because they allowed him to introduce desire, mischief, vulnerability, and movement into classical compositions. These figures are rarely sentimental in his work. Instead, they act as sparks within the image: pointing, provoking, interrupting, or activating the larger scene around them. Here, Cupid is not merely a borrowed Renaissance detail. He is the force that animates the composition, turning Venus from a static ideal of beauty into part of a more psychologically active encounter.

What gives the print much of its visual impact is Picasso’s handling of lithographic black. The dark background acts almost like a stage curtain, pushing the pale figures forward and heightening the drama of the image. The marks feel painterly, spontaneous, and tactile, reminding us that lithography, in Picasso’s hands, was not a mechanical reproductive medium but a space for experiment and reinvention.

This work belongs to a closely related group of four lithographic treatments after Cranach, catalogued by Rau as numbers 485 through 488. Picasso created four variations on the subject, with the second variation developed in two states. The present work, catalogued as Rau 487, is the second and final state of the second variation. It is also recorded as Bloch 613 and Mourlot 183/II, placing it firmly within the principal catalogues raisonnés of Picasso’s printed work.

For collectors, the appeal lies in the combination of recognizable subject, strong visual presence, and important printmaking context. The image connects Picasso to the European painting tradition while showing how completely he could absorb and remake that tradition on his own terms. It is at once classical and raw, historical and contemporary, elegant in subject yet forceful in execution.

As a signed lithograph from 1949, printed by Mourlot and published by Galerie Louise Leiris, "Vénus et l’Amour" represents one of the most engaging moments in Picasso’s late-1940s graphic production. It rewards both immediate visual response and closer art-historical consideration: a Renaissance Venus transformed by Picasso into a modern meditation on beauty, desire, and artistic reinvention.