Description of the Collection of Ancient Marbles in the British Museum, XI
Description of the Collection of Ancient Marbles in the British Museum, with Engravings. Part XI, London, Woodfall and Kinder, & Longman and Co., 1861. Disegni di Henry Corbould
Plate XXXIV. Statue of Venus. A statue of Venus, naked, and larger than the size of life; similar in most respects to that usually called the Venus of the Capitol, various repetitions of which exist in the different collections of Europe. Her hair is gathered up in a double knot upon the head, and tied behind the neck, a small portion of it falling down on the shoulders.
Statue of Venus, in Description of the Collection of Ancient Marbles in the British Museum, London 1861
The urn, for holding unguent, called by ancient writers the kallòs, covered with drapery, stands by her side, perhaps to indicate the intention of the artist to represent the goddess either as preparing to descend into the bath, or as having just left it. Such vases (technically called alábastra) were generally used to contain such unguents as were required for the bath; and it is not unlikely that the drapery covering it is really the bathing towel. Most of the naked statues of Venus are derived from the celebrated work of Praxiteles, which stood originally in the temple of Venus at Cnidus: of this Venus, which has been admirably described by Lucian, the Imperial coins of that city offer reduced representations. The eyes of the statue are directed straight forward, but seem to express a consciousness of the exposure of her charms ; and the position of the hands is explained by passages in Ovid and Lucian (Ovid, De Arte Am., lib II, v. 614; Lucian, Amores, § 13). It represents a woman of heroic proportions, is larger than the Venus of Ostia, but neither so large or so graceful as that found in the Island of Melos. Clarac has published several statues more or less analogous to this figure, and like it, doubtless, copies, in Roman times, of original Greek statues. Of these, two are now in the Louvre. There is also a statue at Dresden which has great resemblance to it. The one in the Museum of the Capitol bears a Greek inscription, stating that it was copied, by an artist named Menophantus, from a statue in the Troad. The right arm from above the elbow, the left arm from below, the right foot from above the ancle, the heel and half of the left foot, and portions of the drapery have been restored. This statue was presented to the British Museum, in 1834, by His Majesty King William IV. It is in Parian marble, and is 6 feet 9 inches in height.