Venus

The pose derives from the ancient marble known as the Venus de’ Medici (see cat. 176). Replicas of this famous statue were popular among Grand Tour collectors, and this bronze was likely cast for such a market in early nineteenth-century Rome, though the size, larger than the typical souvenir, raises questions about its intended function. The bronze was cast in sections, and a repair is visible on the left forearm. The overall execution is middling, with little to distinguish a specific hand or workshop, though at the time of acquisition the individualized character of the face suggested a connection to the “type of Zoffoli or Righetti.”1 If anything, there is an abstract, smooth quality to the musculature that anticipates the twentieth century.

The statuette was promised to the museum by the socialite and philanthropist April Axton in 1961, though it did not officially enter the collection until 2001. Axton sat for a portrait by the painter Massimo Capigli in Rome in 1953. Perhaps she acquired the Venus during that trip.
-JF

Footnotes
(For key to shortened references see bibliography in Allen, Italian Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. NY: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2022.)


1. See the report of a gift, ESDA/OF, February 22, 2001.