Venus and Cupid

c. 1575/1580

A nearly nude woman wrings out her long hair as a young boy peeks around one hip in this free-standing bronze fountain. In this photograph, the woman's hips and shoulders are squared toward us. Her face turns to our left, and she looks down in that direction so we see her in profile. She gathers her curly hair in a long tress and wrings it with both hands. Her right leg, to our left, is straight, and her other knee is bent so that foot rests on a stylized fish. Cloth drapes over the top of the bent thigh to cover her groin and falls between her legs to her ankles. The fish faces us with its mouth open and two canine-like teeth flanking a hole where water would have spouted. The child gazes around her left hip, to our right, so his eyes, snub nose, and one round cheek angle into view. He has a pile of short curls atop his head, and he holds out a conch shell with one hand. His feet straddle the woman’s in a wider stance so his left foot, to our right, rests with hers over the fish. The patina of the sculpture's polished bronze surface has turned minty green in some areas, especially on the back of the woman’s head, her arms, hands, along her left side, over the bent thigh, and the shell the boy holds. Other areas are darker gray. The pair stand on a piece of flat metal, which is on an off-white, stone pedestal against a light gray background.

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The most important Renaissance bronze statue to enter the collections since the founding of the National Gallery of Art, Venus and Cupid provided a happy culmination to former director J. Carter Brown's long search for a work of sculpture to grace the central fountain on the ground floor near the Constitution Avenue entrance. This sixteenth-century statue designed as a fountain figure, closely related to a celebrated Florentine masterpiece, has since received an even better place, above a newly designed fountain in the ground floor sculpture galleries that opened in 2002.

The lithe Venus, wringing water from her long hair, is a close variant of Giambologna's Florence (Venus) from the Villa Medici at Castello, now on view at La Petraia, another villa near Florence. The Medici bronze was probably modeled in the 1560s and cast c. 1570 - 1572. The similarities in size (Florence is 125 centimeters high) and pose are strong enough to suggest that the sculptor of the Venus and Cupid had access to Giambologna's model. However, differences in the movements and proportions indicate that the Washington Venus is not simply a second cast of Giambologna's model, but an adaptation by a different artistic personality who preferred slimmer proportions, more restrained movements, and a more coolly classical facial type. Whereas Giambologna provided an urn under Venus' left foot to generate her twisting, sinuous pose, the Washington sculptor enlivened the composition with a dolphin that spouts water and supports Venus' small son Cupid. Pressing close to his mother's body and reaching out with a conch shell to catch the droplets falling from her hair, the plump little boy with his waving curls and impetuous action makes an appealing contrast to her cool elegance. The child is closely related in physical type to Giambologna's Fishing Boys of 1561 /1563 (Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence).

The style and the pronounced links with works in Florence suggest that this is the creation of an artist who had access to Giambologna's workshop, and thus was a close collaborator. Since a model for the Medici Florence appears in the background of a portrait of Giambologna in his studio (attributed to Hans von Aachen, c. 1585, private collection), the sculpture evidently meant a good deal to him, and he may have kept its clay or plaster form on hand. The Washington variant is a rare and witty example of the immediate influence of the greatest Renaissance sculptor after Michelangelo. Its prominent place in the ground floor sculpture installation creates a counterpart to the fountain in the main floor Rotunda, whose central bronze figure of Mercury is also an invention of Giambologna.

(Text by Alison Luchs, published in the National Gallery of Art exhibition catalogue, Art for the Nation, 2000)

On View

West Building Ground Floor, Gallery G10

Artwork overview

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Baroness Sophia Elizabeth Wykeham [d. 1870], Thame Park, Oxfordshire.[1] private collection, England;[2] (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 10 December 1991, no. 100, not sold); purchased 31 December 1991 through (Christie, Manson & Woods, London) by NGA.
[1] Thame Park, originally a monastery, was acquired by Sir John Williams, later Lord Williams of Thame, in the mid 16th century. At his death in 1559 Thame Park was inherited by his eldest daughter, Isabella, who was married to Richard Wenman. Their grandson, Sir Richard Wenman, was created Viscount Wenman of Tuam in the Irish peerage in 1628. Succeeding male members of the family inherited Thame Park, through Philip, sixth Viscount Wenman, who died in 1760, and whose son and successor, the seventh and last Viscount, died in 1800 leaving no children. The seventh Viscount's heir was his nephew, William Richard Wykeham, who died a few months after him, leaving a daughter, Sophia Elizabeth, to succeed to the ownership of Thame Park. She was created a baroness in her own right in 1834, and she remained unmarried. At her death in 1870, her successor was her cousin, Herbert Wykeham, who was followed by his brother, Aubrey Wykeham, who had married Georgiana Musgrave. Aubrey and Georgiana's son, Wenman Aubrey Wykeham-Musgrave, owned Thame Park by 1909, and after his death it was sold to W.H. Gardiner, who owned the property by 1922. Mr. and Mrs. Frank Bowden bought Thame Park in 1938, after it had been owned for a time by Lady Forbes-Leith of Fyvie, and the Bowdens owned it until at least 1957. See Arthur Oswald, "Thame Park, Oxfordshire-I" and "Thame Park, Oxfordshire-II", Country Life CXXII, no. 3175 (21 and 28 November 1957): 1092-1095 and 1148-1151; G. Berkeley Wills, "Alterations to Thame Park, Oxfordshire," The Architectural Review LI (January 1922): 16; and "Thame Park, Oxfordshire. A Seat of Mr. W.A. Wykeham-Musgrave," Country Life XXVI (17 July 1909): 90-97.)
[2] The sculpture was offered for sale by "a family trust", where it had been for many years.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

2000

  • Art for the Nation: Collecting for a New Century, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2000-2001, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

Bibliography

1991

  • Keutner, Herbert. "The Venus Anadyomene attributed to Carlo di Cesare del Palagio (1540-1598)." Christie's International Magazine 8 (1991): 8-11, repro.

1992

  • Keutner, Herbert. "Carlo de Cesare del Palagio (1540-1598): Eine Bronzevenus aus dem Garten der Berg Trausnitz?" Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst (1992): 93+, repro.

  • Brozan, Nadine. "Chronicle." The New York Times (Thursday, 7 May 1992).

  • Lewis, Jo Ann. "National Gallery's Lady of Love." The Washington Post (6 May 1992).

2000

  • Art for the Nation: Collecting for a New Century. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2000: 246-247, repro. (not in the exhibition).

  • National Gallery of Art Special Issue. Connaissance des Arts. Paris, 2000:59.

2004

  • Diemer, Dorothea. Hubert Gerhard und Carlo di Cesare del Palagio. Bronzeplastiker der Spätrenaissance. 2 vols., Berlin, 2004: 1, 414-416, repro.

Wikidata ID

Q63860661

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