The Aldobrandini Wedding fresco, themed to the universal anxiety experienced by a young bride (center) comforted and supported by Venus, waiting to meet the groom and lose her virginity. Hymen, god of marriage, sits at the foot of the bed [1600×620]

[Wikipedia link about this piece, symbolism and interpretations](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldobrandini_Wedding)

Second half of the 1st century BC, now displayed in the Vatican Museum. The fresco was discovered around 1600 from a house near the Arch of Gallienus on Esquiline Hill. It was in possession of the Aldobrandini family until 1818, when it was purchased by the Vatican authorities.

The classic interpretation of the work, devised by the classical scholar Winckelmann, is that the scene depicts the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, parents of Achilles. A second hypothesis, formulated in the 18th century by Luigi Dutens, is that the scene is the marriage of Alexander the Great and Roxana. These interpretations were pre-eminent until 1994, when Frank Müller proposed a scene from the play Hippolytus by Euripides as a guide for the correct reading of the fresco.