Silence! We don't have to wake her up. She is lying naked on thick pillows, abandoned, offered to amazement. Her skin is marble white, her head and breasts are small. Her idealized body has sensual curves. It is not a woman, but a goddess we contemplate. Disturbing and perfect beauty.

But why this left hand cut at the wrist, and the legs brutally cut off at the level of the thighs? This work is the fragment of a larger composition: the agile arabesque of the undulating body of Venus on a bed covered with a flowery sheet, at the end of which two angels observed a pair of birds. In the upper right corner, a landscape gave depth to the whole. We don't know when it was reduced to this striking oval.

Why exhibit a truncated work? Dell'Abate became famous in Italy in the early 16th century for his sense of landscape, genre scenes and female types. Called to the court of the king of France in 1552, he highlights Le Primatice for the decoration of the castle of Fontainebleau. He introduced a taste for the landscape and pastoral scenes in Bellifontana art.

The theme of the sleeping Venus surrounded by loves is a classic of Renaissance art. Nicolò was able to study it in Italy and in the French royal collection. It gives it life and pulpit, with the flexibility of its brush and its pearly colors. Many of his works were destroyed or retouched in the 17th century, their voluptuous charm struck the most puritanical sensibility. This Venus is one of the rare examples of her delicate talent.

© Musée des beaux-arts de Quimper.