In this study for a larger painting of a scene from Virgil’s Aeneid, Merry Joseph Blondel depicted the epic poem’s protagonist, Aeneas, wounded and having dragged himself away from the battlefield. Hidden in a divine mist, the goddess Venus—Aeneas’s mother—and the river god Numicus come to his rescue. Numicus holds the hero as Venus administers a healing balm. The following lines from A. S. Kline’s translation of the poem describe the scene:

This Venus brought, her face veiled in dark mist,
this, with its hidden curative powers, she steeped
in river water, poured into a glittering basin, and sprinkled
there healing ambrosial juice and fragrant panacea.