Love Requests Venus to Return His Weapons to Him, 1768. Louis-Marin Bonnet (French, 1736-1793), after François Boucher (French, 1703-1770). Chalk-manner etching and engraving printed in color; sheet: 30 x 39.8 cm (11 13/16 x 15 11/16 in.); platemark: 27.3 x 36.7 cm (10 3/4 x 14 7/16 in.). For his aristocratic patrons, Boucher made numerous paintings of intriguing female nudes, thinly veiled as Roman goddesses lounging in luxury. Bonnets color chalk-manner prints of similar subjects offered middle-class buyers sumptuous yet affordable versions of Bouchers wildly popular images. Here, a tiny cupid pleads with Venus for his quiver of arrows as she gazes teasingly at the viewer. Their feathered ends simultaneously conceal and draw attention to her nudity. With cupids arrows in her control, it is Venus—rather than cupid—who has the power to arouse feelings of love.