Venus

Object belonging

One's own

Category

Bronze sculpture

City

Rome

Location

Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia

Specific location

Room 17

Inventory

PV 10783

Material and technique

Bronze, brown patina, traces of black varnish

Author

Southern German School or Venice

Dating

c. 1550-1600

Dimensions

16.7 x 4 x 3.5 cm.

Origin

Auriti Collection (1963)

Image copyright

SSPSAE e per il Polo Museale della città di Roma

Short description

Planiscig attributed this Venus, from the Auriti Collection, to Alessandro Vittoria, comparing it to the so-called Black Venus in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, a controversial work that Planiscig also believed to be sculpted by Vittoria himself. Santangelo too believed it to be by Alessandro Vittoria, noting similarities with the Diana in the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Berlin, which is signed by Vittoria. He believed the other examples in the Landesmuseum in Karlsruhe, in the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire in Geneva, and the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum in Munich to be inferior replicas of this Venus. A version that was formerly part of the Paul Hatvany Collection appeared on the London market and was attributed to a Venetian or southern German artist of the 17th century. But the harsh manner in which the body is made does not suggest it is Venetian, nor by Vittoria, who is often wrongly cited as the author of the work. The modelling of the pelvis is lacking in shape; its somewhat lengthened and swollen form echoes works from Southern Germany, just as the gesture and the posture of the figure seem to be derived from German Renaissance drawings.

Pietro Cannata

Bibliography

L. Planiscig, La Collezione Giacinto Auriti, Vienna 1931, no. 14; A. Santangelo, Museo di Palazzo Venezia. La Collezione Auriti, Rome 1964, p. 18.