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This panel was painted as a pendant to Diana at the Bath, which is shown nearby. Both paintings reveal James Ward’s admiration for the old masters, particularly Titian and Peter Paul Rubens; but in their mannerist distortions, flesh vitality, and rich sensuality, these paintings also recall the work of Henry Fuseli, who had died a few years earlier. When Venus Rising from her Couch was shown at the Royal Academy exhibition at Somerset House in 1830, one critic remarked that despite its mythological subject matter, the painting “possesses not one redeeming virtue to atone for its indelicacy.” Another critic echoed these sentiments and further protested, “Why are the modest and lovely young females who daily grace the rooms of Somerset House with their presence, to have their feelings outraged, and blushes called into their cheeks, by a work like this,—placed too in a situation in which it cannot possibly escape near notice?”

Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016