''Pauline Bonaparte as Venus Victrix'' ("Venus Victorious") is a
semi-nude life-size reclining
neo-Classical portrait
A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this ...
sculpture
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable ...
by the Italian sculptor
Antonio Canova
Antonio Canova (; 1 November 1757 – 13 October 1822) was an Italian Neoclassical sculptor, famous for his marble sculptures. Often regarded as the greatest of the Neoclassical artists,. his sculpture was inspired by the Baroque and the cla ...
. 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
Paula Maria Bonaparte Leclerc Borghese ( French: ''Pauline Marie Bonaparte''; 20 October 1780 – 9 June 1825), better known as Pauline Bonaparte, was an imperial French princess, the first sovereign Duchess of Guastalla, and the princess cons ...
's husband
Camillo Borghese and executed in Rome from 1805 to 1808, after the subject's marriage into the
Borghese
The House of Borghese is a princely family of Italian noble and papal background, originating as the Borghese or Borghesi in Siena, where they came to prominence in the 13th century and held offices under the ''commune''. During the 16th century, ...
family. It then moved to Camillo's house in
Turin
Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...
, then to
Genoa
Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian census, the Province of ...
, only arriving in its present home (the
Galleria Borghese
The Galleria Borghese () is an art gallery in Rome, Italy, housed in the former Villa Borghese Pinciana. At the outset, the gallery building was integrated with its gardens, but nowadays the Villa Borghese gardens are considered a separate touris ...
in
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus ( legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
) around 1838.
The sculpture
Nude portraits were unusual, with subjects of high rank usually having strategically placed drapery (though Canova did produce another of the Bonaparte family, with his 1806 ''
Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker
''Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker'' is a colossal heroic nude statue by the Italian artist Antonio Canova, of Napoleon I of France in the guise of the Roman god Mars. He holds a gilded Nike or Victory standing on an orb in his right hand and ...
''). It is a matter of debate as to whether she actually posed naked for the sculpture, since only the head is a realistic (if slightly idealised) portrait, whilst the nude torso is a neo-classically idealised female form. When asked how she could pose for the sculptor wearing so little, she reputedly replied that there was a stove in the studio that kept her warm, though this may be apocryphal or a quip deliberately designed by her to stir up scandal.
She holds an apple in her hand evoking
Aphrodite
Aphrodite ( ; grc-gre, Ἀφροδίτη, Aphrodítē; , , ) is an ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, and procreation. She was syncretized with the Roman goddess . Aphrodite's major symbols incl ...
's victory in the
Judgement of Paris
Judgement (or US spelling judgment) is also known as ''adjudication'', which means the evaluation of evidence to make a decision. Judgement is also the ability to make considered decisions. The term has at least five distinct uses. Aristotle ...
. The room in which the sculpture is exhibited at the Galleria Borghese also has a ceiling painting portraying the judgement, painted by
Domenico de Angelis in 1779 and inspired by a famous relief on the façade of the
Villa Medici
The Villa Medici () is a Mannerist villa and an architectural complex with a garden contiguous with the larger Borghese gardens, on the Pincian Hill next to Trinità dei Monti in Rome, Italy. The Villa Medici, founded by Ferdinando I de' Medici, ...
.
Canova was first instructed to depict Pauline Bonaparte fully clothed as the chaste goddess Diana, hunter and virgin, but Pauline started to laugh and said that nobody would have believed she was a virgin. She had an international reputation for easy promiscuity, in France and in Italy, and may have enjoyed the provocation of posing naked in the Catholic Rome. Further, when Pauline was asked whether she really posed naked in front of Canova, she replied that in fact she was naked, and that it did not constitute a problem because Canova "was not a real man", and that the room was too warm to pose dressed. The subject of the sculpture may have also been affected by the Borghese family's mythical ancestry: they traced their descent to Venus, through her son Aeneas, the founder of Rome.
Canova's Paolina Borghese as Venus Victorious
Ben Pollitt, Smarthistory
Smarthistory is a free resource for the study of art history created by art historians Beth Harris and Steven Zucker. Smarthistory is an independent not-for-profit organization and the official partner to Khan Academy
Khan Academy is an Americ ...
, accessed December 20, 2012.
The wooden base, draped like a catafalque
A catafalque is a raised bier, box, or similar platform, often movable, that is used to support the casket, coffin, or body of a dead person during a Christian funeral or memorial service. Following a Roman Catholic Requiem Mass, a catafalqu ...
, once contained a mechanism for rotating the sculpture, as in the case of other works by Canova and in the adapted bases of ancient sculpture in galleries, so that a viewer could observe it from all angles without moving him/herself. In the era of its production, viewers would also admire the sculpture by candlelight. The sculpture's lustre was not only due to the fine quality of the marble but also to the waxed surface, which has been recently restored.
The plaster original
The Museo Canova
The Museo Canova is a museum established in 1833 at the birthplace of the Italian sculptor Antonio Canova (1757-1822) in Possagno in the province of Treviso in the Veneto, Italy. The museum is dedicated to the life and work of the sculptor and is c ...
has the plaster cast of Venus Victrix, originally used as a model for the marble, in its , the museum's plaster cast
A plaster cast is a copy made in plaster of another 3-dimensional form. The original from which the cast is taken may be a sculpture, building, a face, a pregnant belly, a fossil or other remains such as fresh or fossilised footprints – ...
gallery. During the first Battle of Monte Grappa
The Battles of Monte Grappa were a series of three battles which were fought during World War I between the armies of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy for control of the Monte Grappa massif, as it covered the left flank of t ...
in 1917, a Christmas-time bombing severed the head of the plaster and damaged parts of the hands, feet, and cloth. A 2004 restoration repaired this damage. In 2020, a tourist broke some of the toes as he sat on the plaster while posing for a selfie.
See also
* Venus Victrix
Venus (), , is a Roman goddess, whose functions encompass love, beauty, desire, sex, fertility, prosperity, and victory. In Roman mythology, she was the ancestor of the Roman people through her son, Aeneas, who survived the fall of Troy and f ...
References
External links
Galleria Borghese site
{{Canova , state=expanded
1808 sculptures
19th-century portraits
Marble sculptures in Italy
Nude sculptures
Portraits by Italian artists
Sculptures by Antonio Canova
Canova
Sculptures of Venus
Sculptures of women in Italy