Venus Victrix (Canova)
Pauline Bonaparte as Venus Victrix (or Venus Victorious) is a semi-nude life-size reclining neo-Classical portrait sculpture by the Italian sculptor Antonio Canova. Reviving the ancient Roman artistic traditions of portrayals of mortal individuals in the guise of the gods, and of the beautiful female form reclining on a couch (as most often seen in reclining portrayals of Hermaphroditi), it was commissioned by Pauline Bonaparte's husband Camillo Borghese and executed in Rome from 1805 to 1808, after the subject's marriage into the Borghese family. It then moved to Camillo's house in Turin, then to Genoa, only arriving in its present home (the Galleria Borghese in Rome) around 1838.
Read more about Venus Victrix (Canova): The Sculpture
Famous quotes containing the word venus:
“In the drawing room [of the Queen’s palace] hung a Venus and Cupid by Michaelangelo, in which, instead of a bit of drapery, the painter has placed Cupid’s foot between Venus’s thighs. Queen Caroline asked General Guise, an old connoisseur, if it was not a very fine piece? He replied “Madam, the painter was a fool, for he has placed the foot where the hand should be.””
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)