Allegory of Fire (Venus in the Forge of Vulcan)

Jacopo Bassano was an Italian Renaissance painter of the Venetian school. He was born and died in Bassano del Grappa, and took the village as his surname. Having trained in the workshop of his father, Francesco the Elder, he painted mostly religious paintings, landscapes, and genre scenes. Indeed, he often treated biblical themes in the manner of rural genre scenes, representing peasants, animals, and the agrarian landscape with great accuity. Bassano's pictures were very popular in Venice and, eventually, throughout Europe. His four sons – Francesco Bassano the Younger, Giovanni Battista da Ponte, Leandro Bassano, and Girolamo da Ponte – also became artists and followed him closely in style and subject matter.