The Sculpture Museum - Catalog - Page 30
roman, 18th century
7
Apollino and Callipygian Venus
After the Antique
Bronze
Each 63 cm (24¾ in.) high
fig. 1
Roman, 1st century ad,
Apollino, marble, 141 cm high
Florence, Uffizi
In the eighteenth century, wealthy Grand Tourists who travelled to Italy in
search of culture and adventure were keen to purchase accurate bronze models
of the famous antique statues they encountered. In 1794, the influential designer
Charles Heathcote Tatham wrote to recommend the locally made Roman bronzes
after the Antique to Henry Holland thus: “There is clearly an advantage in having
bronzes copied immediately from the rarest antique statues, which the workman
has before him, making them much more interesting and valuable” (Honour 1961,
p. 198).
The earliest record of the ancient Roman model for the present bronze
Apollino dates to 1704, when it was at the Villa Medici in Rome (fig. 1). It achieved
immediate fame and later versions of it were often paired with the Venus de
Medici, as in Thomas Hope’s house Deepdene, in Surrey, England. Since 1771, the
Roman marble original has been displayed in the illustrious Tribuna of the Uffizi
in Florence, where the Medici exhibited their most prized artistic treasures. It was
probably an adaption of a work by the famed Greek sculptor Praxiteles, and the
subject has long been believed to represent the adolescent Apollo. By the turn
of the nineteenth century, the Apollino had been selected by Baron DominiqueVivant Denon, along with the Farnese Hercules and the Borghese Gladiator, as
works considered a high priority to acquire for the Musée Napoleon’s collection.
As a result, the Apollino was removed to Palermo by the Italians in September
1800, to prevent its export by the French troops.
The present pair to the Apollino – a female figure coyly presenting herself to
the onlooker – is a reduced size version a famous ancient marble statue, now in
the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples, known as the Callipygian Venus,
or ‘Venus of the beautiful buttocks’ (fig. 2). The subject derives from a legend
recounted by the third-century ad writer Athenaeus and subsequently retold by
Vincenzo Cartari in his guide to ancient mythology (1556). The tale centres on a
dispute between two daughters of a peasant concerning which one had the most
shapely buttocks. To settle this argument, they decided to select a young man on
the highway, who was unknown to both of them, and to invite him to judge. His
choice of one sister was his reward, and his brother, hearing of the contest, chose
the other girl to be his bride. The double marriage that ensued was so important
to the girls’ futures that they dedicated a temple to Venus Callipygos at Syracuse.
The life-size ancient original has been known by a number of names since its
discovery – ‘La Bergère Greque’, ‘Venus aux belles fesses’, ‘Venus drying herself ’,
‘Venus leaving the Bath’ and ‘La Belle Victorieuse’. It is possible that the work was
