A torso of Venus carved from veined marble, the goddess depicted standing nude with flat reverse, the voluptuous body with naturalistic detailing and slightly bent forwards with the weight carried on the left leg; the torso believed to have been reworked from a Roman original; mounted on a custom-made display stand.

PROVENANCE:
Property of a Kensington gentleman; acquired from Cornette de Saint CYR, Paris, 12 December 2012, lot 128 (€7,500); formerly in a French collection; accompanied by an archaeological expertise by Dr Raffaele D’Amato; this lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by AIAD certificate number no.10661-174373.

LITERATURE:
See Pryce, F.N., Smith, A.H., Catalogue of Greek Sculpture in the British Museum, London, 1892-1928; cf. Jules Formigé, ‘Note sur la Vénus d'Arles’, in Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, 55,8, 1911, pp.658-664; La Rocca, E., Le tranquille dimore degli dei, (catalogo mostra), Roma, 1986, pp.79-82, on the Esquiline Venus; Favaretto, I., Menegazzi A., Un museo di antichita’ nella Padova del Cinquecento. La raccolta Marco Mantova Benavides all’Universita’ di Padova, Roma, 2016.

FOOTNOTES:
This torso is similar to the famous Venus of Arles, a Roman sculpture of 1st century AD,discovered in the remains of the ancient Roman theatre of Arelates. It can be hypothesised that, like the sculptures from Arles, it originally represented a youthful female figure, maybe the goddess Venus, with naked legs (or legs wrapped in a cloak) and a naked torso. In her raised right hand she was probably holding fruit, while in her left she probably held a mirror. The position of the left arm excludes the possibility that the model was the Venus Esquiline. The fact that the statue offered here was not reworked in the round, but only on the front, (the reverse is unworked), suggests that she was possibly intended as a decorative element for a fountain, or simply as a workshop exercise.