Venus de' Medici

Venus de' Medici
Year	1st century BCE
Type	Marble
Location	Uffizi Gallery,Florence

TheVenus de' MediciorMedici Venusis a 1.53 m (5 ft 0 in) tall Hellenistic marble sculpture depicting theGreekgoddessof loveAphrodite.It is a 1st-century BC marble copy, perhaps made in Athens, of a bronze original Greek sculpture, following the type of theAphrodite of Knidos,which would have been made by a sculptor in the immediatePraxiteleantradition, perhaps at the end of the century. It has become one of the navigation points by which the progress of theWestern classical traditionis traced, the references to it outline the changes of taste and the process of classical scholarship.It is housed in theUffizi Gallery,Florence,Italy.

Origin

The statue depicts the goddess in a fugitive, momentary pose, as if surprised in the act of emerging from the sea, to which the dolphin at her feet alludes. The dolphin would not have been a necessary support for the bronze original.

The statue base bears the Greek inscription ΚΛΕΟΜΕΝΗΣ ΑΠΟΛΛΟΔΩΡΟΥ ΑΘΗΝΑΙΟΣ ΕΠΩΕΣΕΝ, literally "Kleomenes (son) of Apollodoros of Athens made it."The inscription is not original, but in the 18th century the name "Cleomenes" was forged on sculptures of modest quality to enhance their value, while the inscription on theVenus de' Mediciwas doubted in order to ascribe the work to one of various highly-thought-of names: besidesPraxitelesthe less-likely names ofPhidiasorScopas.The restoration of the arms was done byErcole Ferrata,who gave them long taperingManneristfingers that did not begin to be recognized as out of keeping with the sculpture until the 19th century.

TheVenus de' Mediciis the name piece under which are recognized many replicas and fragments of this particular version of Praxiteles' theme, which introduced the life size nude representation of Aphrodite. Though this particular variant is not identifiable in any extant literature, it must have been widely known to Greek and Roman connoisseurs. Among replicas and fragments of less importance,the closest in character and finest in quality is a marble Aphrodite at theMetropolitan Museum of Artin New York City, described below.

Such sculptures are described as "Roman copies", with the understanding that these were produced, often by Greek sculptors, anywhere under Roman hegemony "say, between the dictatorship ofSullaand the removal of the Capital toConstantinople,81 BC to AD 330 ".Their quality may vary from work produced by a fine sculptor for a discerning patron, to commonplace copies mass-produced for gardens.

Discovery and display

18th-century marble copy of the Venus de' Medici atPeterhof,St Petersburg

The origin of the Venus is undocumented: "its reputation seems to have grown up gradually",Francis HaskellandNicholas Pennyremarked. It was published in the collection at theVilla Medici,Rome, in 1638, given three plates in the anthology of the most noble sculptures that the ravages of time had spared in Rome compiled byFrançois Perrier,Segmenta nobilia signorum et statuarum que temporis dentem invidium evase,Rome 1638.The Venus was already known by 1559, it now appears, for a bronze reduction of it was among the series of the most famous Roman sculptures that were featured on a cabinet completed in that year; it was commissioned by Niccolò Orsini,Count of Pitigliano,as a gift toPhilip II of Spain:the sculptures were by the Dutch sculptor trained inBenvenuto Cellini's atelier, Willem van Tetrode, calledGuglielmo Fiammingoin Italy.

Detail ofJohn Zoffany's 1772 paintingThe Tribuna of the Uffizi(now in theRoyal Collection), showing the Venus (right) on show in the Tribuna, surrounded by English and Italian connoisseurs.

Though visitors to Rome likeJohn Evelynfound it "a miracle of art", it was sent to Florence in August 1677, its export permitted byInnocent XIbecause, it was thought, it stimulated lewd behavior. In the Tribuna of the Uffizi it was a high point of theGrand Tourand was universally esteemed as one of the half-dozen finest antique statues to have survived, until a reaction in taste began to set in during the 19th century, in the form of a few dissenting voices (Haskell and Penny p. 325).Luca Giordanomade hundreds of drawings of it,Samuel Rogersmade daily appointments with it,Zoffanyincluded it in his 1778Tribuna of the Uffizi,andLord Byrondevoted five stanzas ofChilde Haroldto describing it. It was one of the precious works of art shipped to Palermo in 1800 to escape the French, to no avail: such diplomatic pressure was brought to bear that the Vénus de Medicis was shipped to Paris in 1803. After Napoleon's fall it arrived back in Florence on 27 December 1815.

The Metropolitan Museum'sAphrodite

Aphrodite (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

The marbleAphroditeat the Metropolitan Museum of Art,is a close replica of the Venus de' Medici.The pose of the head is not in doubt, for it did not break off when other breaks occurred, in which the arms were irrevocably lost. On the plinth is the left foot, with part of the dolphin-and-tree-trunk support, and a trace of the missing right foot, restored by a cast, for the sculpture was in two sections, which were joined by casts taken of the Venus de' Medici's lower legs. For dating the replicas, attention is focused on the minor details of the dolphins that were added by the copyists, in which stylistic conventions come to the fore: the Metropolitan dates itsAphroditeof the Medici type to theAugustanperiod.

The MetropolitanAphroditewas in the collection of Count von HarbuvalgenanntChamaré inSilesia,whose progenitor Count Schlabrendorf made theGrand Tourand corresponded withJohann Joachim Winckelmann.

Modern copies

Wateletconfronts the Venus de' Medici, ca. 1765.

The Medici Venus is one of the most-copied antiquities.Louis XIVhad no less than five, marbles byCarlier,Clérion,CoysevoxandFrémery,and a bronze by the Keller brothers. (Haskell and Penny, p. 325). In lead, copies of the Venus de' Medici stand in many English and European gardens, sometimes protected by small temples; in small bronze reductions it figured among the most familiar of the antiquities represented in collectors' cabinets: inGreuze's portrait ofClaude-Henri Watelet,ca 1763–65, the connoisseur and author ofL'Art de peindreis shown with calipers and a notebook, regarding a bronze statuette of the Venus de' Medici, as if in the act of deducing the ideal proportions of the female figure from the sculpture's example. The Venus de' Medici was even reproduced inSèvres biscuit porcelain,which had the matte whiteness of marble.

AmericansculptorHiram Powersbased his 1844 statueThe Greek Slaveon the Venus de' Medici.

A replica in whiteCarrara Marbleof the Venus' hand carved byNiccolò Bazzantiis located at thePietro Bazzanti e Figlio Art GalleryofFlorenceat Museo CivicoRevoltella,Trieste.

References

• Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny,Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500–1900(Yale University Press) 1981
• Guido Mansuelli,Galleria degli Uffizi: Le Sculture(Rome) 2 vols. 1958–61, vol. I, pp. 71–73.

External links

• Media related toMedici Venusat Wikimedia Commons