Rivière is best known as an animal painter, and as such was considered the successor to Britain's great animalier, Edwin Landseer (1802-1873). It is from this perspective that he chose to treat the subject of Aphrodite. Unlike most painters, he did not focus on the subject's erotic potential, but chose an unusual scene derived from a Homeric hymn (8th-6th centuries BC). A label written by the artist is attached to the reverse of this painting, and contains the specific verse:

Aphrodite

There clad herself in garments beautiful
The laughter loving goddess. Gold-adorned
She hasted on her way down Ida's Mount,
Ida, the many-rilled, mother of wild beasts
And in her train, the grey wolf and the bear,
the keen eyed lion and the swift footed pard,
that hungers for the kind, all fawning came.

Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite