Alessandro Botticelli - Oil Venus and Mars is a painting by the Italian Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli, dating from c. 1483. The work shows the Roman gods Venus and Mars in an allegory of Beauty and Valour. Mars sleeps, watched by Venus, while three infant satyrs play with his armour and another hest under his arm. One blows a conch shell in his ear in an effort to wake him. The scene is set in a forest, the background distance shows the sea in which Venus was born. A swarm of wasps hover around Mars' head, possibly as a dark reminder that love will often be accompanied by pain.