Lovers net

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Caroni might have been inspired to create this composition by a contemporary, Raimondo Pereda (1840–1915) who exhibited, alongside works by Caroni at the Philadelphia exhibition, a marble also entitled Love’s Net. Pereda’s work shows cupid trapping Venus in his net, whereas her, with playful charm, Caroni reverses the initiator by showing Venus trapping cupid, who looks none too happy to have been caught. The allusion is to a mythological scene when Venus and Mars are caught in a net in their adulterous liaison by Venus’ husband Vulcan. In turn, the playfulness of Venus disarming cupid, references French rococo ideals, popular in romantic sculpture of the period.