Venus

Description

Of this work Baldinucci recalls, "he made a beautiful female which was placed above the cup of a fountain; figure attudinata per modo che osservata da quante vedute si vogliano, apparisce in atto meravigliosamente grazioso." The sculpture is in fact one of Giambologna's finest, usually considered to predate the execution of the remaining parts of the fountain, and thus intended for another location. There are also no traces for the outflow of the gushes. The elegance of the movements, the silky rendering of the surfaces, and the composed twisting of the body in fact do not tie in with the part below, which is characterized by a lively outline and a grotesque, naturalistic taste. Borghini's mention, in his letter of September 1583, of the fine marble to be used for the Pitti grotto, can only refer to this fountain, not excluding that it may have been intended precisely for the statue, since Stoldo Lorenzi had it quarried for a figure. The proximity to the 'Medici Venus' now in the Uffizi Tribune, for the vaulted head, and in the delicacy of modeling of the whole, has not been sufficiently observed. The antique marno turns up at the Villa Medici in Rome in 1598, but Pelli records it as a probable earlier purchase by Cardinal Ferdinand. Avery observes there a figurative reprise from the theme 'Susanna and the Vecchions'; while Keutner read there a derivation from the small bronze sculpture of Venus now in Vienna, datable to around 1564.