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Overview

This Venus is among the few life-size Renaissance bronze statues in the United States and, certainly, one of the best. Her proportions recall classical ideals of feminine beauty, but are a little fuller, more rounded and compact. Standing with the weight on her left leg, she twists in a subtle spiral. Her right hand offers a conch shell, an ancient female symbol. The luxuriant tresses of her hair, bound in knots and chased with fine lines, wind as if full of energy. The voluptuous contours and warm gaze make this statue a persuasive conception of the ancient Greco-Roman goddess of love, beauty, and procreation.

The Venus was once thought to be a work of Jacopo Sansovino, probably because she is paired with a statue of Bacchus and a Faun that resembles Sansovino's Bacchus of 1511-12 in Florence. Recent research has dated the Washington Venus and Bacchus closer to 1600 and traced their ownership back as far as 1656, when they stood in the garden of a villa at Lainate, near Milan. The sculptural decoration for this garden in the late 1580s was supervised by Francesco Brambilla, chief of sculpture for Milan Cathedral. Other works produced from his designs suggest that he may have made the wax or clay model that was cast into the Venus.

Inscription

stamped on base: N. / 6316 / P.R.

Provenance

Installed in the garden, outside the nymphaeum of the Villa Litta Visconti Borromeo, Lainate, near Milan, before 1617 (and possibly part of the original installation completed in 1589);[1] purchased c. 1865 by "Prince Napoleon,"[2] Palais Royal, Paris; (his sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 9-11 May 1872, 2nd day, no. 222, with NGA 1937.1.133 as no. 221); (Wareham); (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 25 July 1891, no. 92, with NGA 1937.1.133 as no. 91, withdrawn); (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 20 May 1892, no. 147, with NGA 1937.1.133 as no. 146).[3] Sir George Faudel-Phillips [1840-1922], Lord Mayor of London, 1896-1897. George Jay Gould [1864-1923], Lakewood, New Jersey; (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris); purchased 15 December 1936 by The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh;[4] gift 1937 to NGA.

[1] Giancarlo Gentilini and Alessandro Morandotti, "The Sculptures of the Nymphaeum at Lainate: The Origins of the Mellon Venus and Bacchus." Studies in the History of Art 24 (1990): 135-171, especially Appendices A and B, which detail the documentary evidence, and 166 n. 3, which discusses the later history of the sculpture's whereabouts and details the inaccuracies in previously published versions of the provenance.

[2] This was probably Napoleon Joseph Charles Paul Bonaparte (1822-1891), who was a first cousin to Napoleon III, and commonly known as Prince Napoleon and occasionally as Prince Jerome Napoleon. He occupied the Palais Royal during Napoleon III's rule as head of the Second French Empire, 1852-1870.

[3] The 1891 and 1892 sales were kindly brought to the Gallery's attention by Patricia Wengraf; see her e-mails of 3 February 2009 to Alison Luchs, in NGA curatorial files. Both sales, according to the catalogues, were ordered by the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice as part of the case of Trau v. Wareham. The sellers are recorded in both years as Messrs. Rye and Eyre of Golden Square, London; the buyer in 1892 is recorded only as the initial "J." Lynda McLeod, Librarian, Christie's Archives, kindly provided the seller and buyer information in her e-mail of 1 August 2012, in NGA curatorial files.

[4] The original Duveen Brothers invoice is in Gallery Archives, copy in NGA curatorial files; the sculpture is listed as by Jacopo Sansovino.

Bibliography
1937
Cortissoz, Royal. An Introduction to the Mellon Collection. Boston, 1937: 28.
1941
Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 235-236, no. A-21, as Venus Anadyomene by Jacopo Sansovino.
1942
Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 253, repro. 236, as Venus Anadyomene by Jacopo Sansovino.
1943
Swarzenski, Georg. "Some Aspects of Italian Quattrocento Sculpture in the National Gallery." Gazette des Beaux-Arts 6th series, 24 (November 1943): 300 fig. 15, 302, as by Jacopo Sansovino.
1944
Duveen Brothers, Inc. Duveen Sculpture in Public Collections of America: A Catalog Raisonné with illustrations of Italian Renaissance Sculptures by the Great Masters which have passed through the House of Duveen. New York, 1944: figs. 194-196, as Venus Anadyomene by Jacopo Sansovino.
1949
Paintings and Sculpture from the Mellon Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1949 (reprinted 1953 and 1958): 168, repro., as Venus Anadyomene by Jacopo Sansovino.
1949
Seymour, Charles. Masterpieces of Sculpture from the National Gallery of Art. Washington and New York, 1949: 180, note 141, repro. 127-129, as Venus Anadyomene by Jacopo Sansovino.
1951
Hartt, Frederick. 'Review: Charles Seymour Jr., Masterpieces of Sculpture from the National Gallery of Art." College Art Journal 10 (Winter 1951): 204.
1956
Valentiner, Wilhelm R. "Shorter Notes: A Neglected Sculptor in the Mannerist Exhibition at Amsterdam." The Art Quarterly 19 (Spring 1956): 41-49, repro. fig. 3.
1965
Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 170, as Venus Anadyomene by Jacopo Sansovino.
1968
National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 150, repro., as Venus Anadyomene by Jacopo Sansovino.
1971
Mariacher, Giovanni. Bronzetti veneti del rinascimento. Vicenza, 1971: 36 no. 126, repro.
1973
Finley, David Edward. A Standard of Excellence: Andrew W. Mellon Founds the National Gallery of Art at Washington. Washington, 1973: 42, 62
1984
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 634, no. 991, repro., as Venus Anadyomene by Jacopo Sansovino.
1987
"The Mellon Venus." National Gallery of Art Newsletter (July-August 1987): 5, repro.
1990
Gentilini, Giancarlo, and Morandotti, Alessandro. "The Sculptures of the nymphaeum at Lainate: the Origins of the Mellon Venus and Bacchus." Studies in the History of Art 24 (1990): 135-137, 147, 150-151, 153-154, 158-161, repros.
1990
Lewis, Douglas and Luchs, Alison. "Report on the First Curatorial Colloquy at the National Gallery of Art, June 1987." Studies in the History of Art 24 (1990):131-133.
1990
Morandotti, Alessandro. "The Mellon Venus and Bacchus and the Original Sculpture Collection in the Nymphaeum of Villa Visconti Borromeo-Litta in Lainate." Center, Research Reports and Record of Activities 10 (1990): 65-66, repro.
1991
Leithe-Jasper, Manfred. "Die fürstliche kunstkammer als quelle der anregung für künstler: Am beispiel der einwirkung François Duquesnoy's auf Georg Raphael Donner." In Zu gast: In der kustkammer, Eine ausstellung anlässlich des einhundertjährigen bestehens des Kunsthistorischen Museums, 12. Oktober bis 15. Dezember 1991. Berlin, 1991: 99-104, repro. abb. 85.
1992
National Gallery of Art. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1992: 296, repro.
1994
Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1994: 151, repro.
1998
Fabianski, Marcin. Correggio's Erotic Poesie. Kraków, 1998: 25, 26, repro. fig. 8.
1999
Thompson, J. Kevin, Leslie J. Heinberg, Madeline Altabe, Stacey Tantleff-Dunn. Exacting Beauty: Theory, Assessment, and Treatment of Body Image Disturbance. Washington, 1999: 89-91, repro. fig. 3.1A.
2000
National Gallery of Art Special Issue. Connaissance des Arts. Paris, 2000:59.
2003
Ozone, Judy, and Shelley G. Sturman. “Technical investigation of the Mellon Venus and Bacchus and a Faun.” In Peta Motture, ed., Large Bronzes in the Renaissance. Studies in the History of Art 64, Symposium Papers 41 (2003): 203-213.
2005
Morandotti, Alessandro. Milano profana nell'età dei Borromeo. Milan, 2005: 39, 42, 55, 58, 77 n. 6, 80 n. 74, 85 n. 296, 238-239, 242-243, repro. 39, figs. XXII, XXIII, 267 fig. 165, 269 fig. 171.
2008
Penny, Nicholas. "The Evolution of the Plinth, Pedestal, and Socle." In Collecting Sculpture in Early Modern Europe. Nicholas Penny and Eike D. Schmidt, eds. Studies in the History of Art 70, Symposium Papers 47 (2008): 473.
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