After Antonio Canova, ca. 1870

After ANTONIO CANOVA (Italy, 1757 - 1822), ca. 1870.
"Venus Victrix".
Marble.
Presents illegible signature on the base.
Wooden base.
Measurements: 32 x 60 x 19,5 cm; 9 x 59 x 21 cm (pedestal).

Marble sculpture of neoclassical inspiration that reproduces with excellent workmanship the famous Venus Victrix by Canova, preserved in the Borghese Gallery in Rome. It is a female nude, except for a light garment covering her hips and pubis. The young woman adopts an attitude between haughty and languid, with her head resting on her right hand and her body reclining on pillows. She holds an apple in her left hand (the apple of Discord which was the prize of the goddess, victor in the trial of Paris). The Empire-style divan is intended to emulate Roman furniture. Canova takes up the ancient tradition of portraying mortals in the figure of divinities. The pose derives from the pictorial tradition of Venus-Aphrodite representations from the Renaissance, particularly Giorgione's Sleeping Venus.

The work was commissioned by Paulina's husband, Prince Camillo Borghese, and was executed, after their wedding, between 1805 and 1808, in Rome. After its completion it was moved to Camillo Borghese's residence in Turin, then to Genoa, and around 1838 it returned to Rome to be exhibited in the Galleria Borghese where it has remained ever since. To intensify the iconography, the room on whose ceiling there is a painting on the theme of the Judgment of Paris, by Domenico de Angelis, dated 1779, was chosen.