Venus Mourning the Death of Adonis

The present work represents the subject of "The Death of Adonis" from Ovid's "Metamorphoses". Adonis was the offsprint of the incestuous union of King Cinyras of Paphos, in Cyprus, with his daughter Myrrha. His beauty was famous and Venus conceived a helpless passion for him as a result of a chance graze she received from Cupid's arrow. One day while out hunting Adonis was slain by a wild boar, an accident Venus has always dreaded. Hearing his dying groans as she flew overhead in her chariot, she came down to aid him, but was too late. In the place where the earth was stained with Adonis' blood, anemones sprouted.
The painting appears in a watercolor from around 1850, representing the interior of "Mon Salon a Saint Petersburg" which remains in the collection of the previous owner.
The other versions of this subject are known, the first, oil on canvas, signed, 138.3 x 199 cm. is in the collection of Schloss Oranienburg, Berlin (see Heinrich op. cit. A5p. 151, ill. 10). The second version, all entitled "Venus pleure la Mort d'Adonis", oil on canvas, 167 x 205.8 cm is presently in the collection of the Noordbrabant Museum, 's_Hertogenbosch. (see Heinrich, op. cit. cat A69, p.256, ill. 103).
This painting was previously only known through a copy of this composition, which appeared at auction in Christie's, Amsterdam on May 6, 2009, cat. no. 17. It is presumably the painting that was catalogued by Axel Heinrich as "mentioned in old literature but whereabouts unknown".
The two greyhounds at the far right of the present composition derive from those in an oil sketch by Frans Snyders, now in the Herzog-Anton-Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig.