Venus Disarming Mars

In this engraving, Venus, the goddess of love and mistress of the war god Mars, takes away Mars’s weapons with the help of two putti. The scene shows how the power of love conquers even the god of war. In the seventeenth century, the theme of ‘disarming’ was understood as an allegory of peace. According to the inscription, the engraving is based on a painting by Anthony van Dyck, the most important pupil and collaborator of Peter Paul Rubens. Van Dyck’s picture reproduced a popular painting by Rubens, which was created between 1615 and 1617 and was on view at the Dutch court in The Hague at the time.