Venus lies full-length, her head to the right, on blue-grey drapery. She teases Cupid by refusing him his bow and arrow which she holds in her left hand. He leans across her right shoulder in an attempt to recover them. There are two doves, pink roses and a yellow fruit in the right foreground. The painting is a replica of a composition of which better versions are the small painting in the Uffizi (1512; 29 x 38 cm) and a large panel in the Kress Collection (County Museum, Los Angeles, K. 224: 143.5 x 227.3 cm). There are minor differences in the landscape background, and in colour, and in the Kress picture Venus's nakedness is partly covered by veils and roses, apparently later additions. At Montpellier (Musée Fabre) there is a large version, signed by Alessandro Allori, in which the lower limbs of Venus are differently disposed, and again some colours are different. A similar painting, perhaps the same, was in the Orléans Collection until 1792.

The technique is close to that of Allori and it was probably painted in his workshop.