Paolo Veronese, 'Respect', about 1575

This is one of a series of four paintings by Veronese that concern the trials and rewards of love, although their precise meanings remain unclear. The compositions are designed to be seen from below so we know the pictures were intended for a ceiling or a series of ceilings. The paintings are recorded in 1648 in the collection of the Holy Roman Emperor in Prague. We do not know who commissioned them, but it is most likely that the Four Allegories of Love were painted for an Italian patron and were still in Italy in the 1620s, when Van Dyck recorded two of the compositions in his Italian sketchbook (British Museum, London).

It is possible that the paintings were made for the parallel suites of rooms of a husband and wife, two of the paintings for the reception room and bedchamber of the man and two for the equivalent rooms of his spouse.This painting and Scorn seem particularly intended for a male viewer.

Cupid drags a man in military costume by his phallic sword hilt towards a naked woman sleeping on a bed. Cupid’s golden arrow points rather crudely to the woman’s genitals, which are concealed by the red cloth over her leg. However, the man’s companion pulls him away by his arm. The man’s contorted pose suggests his dilemma – he is being pulled in two different directions at the same time. The subject seems to concern sexual temptation and restraint. The title ‘Respect’ is not original and was only given to the painting in 1727, but it may be that the man decides to resist temptation out of respect for the woman because she is asleep.

The woman’s chemise, embroidered with a pattern of black cross-stitch known as ‘black work’, and with a lace collar, appears to be discarded on the floor. It has been suggested that the glass beside the bed may indicate that the woman has been drinking, although there is no evidence that it is a wine glass. A fan is placed on the entablature above the bed. The mosaic scene in the arch has been identified as ‘The Continence of Scipio’ – an episode during which the military leader Scipio Africanus exercised sexual restraint in returning a female prisoner of war untouched to her family. However, this identification is not certain.

The subject of this painting has long caused controversy. When the National Gallery acquired the set of four paintings from Lord Darnley in 1890 this one was held back and eventually given for free as it was considered distasteful for public money to be spent on a painting of a man apparently about to take advantage of a sleeping woman. Lord Darnley wrote: ‘to tell the truth, I am only too glad to have ’le Respect‘, as it is so curiously designated, off my hands.’