LOT 0706

Roman Bronze Statuette of Venus

1ST-2ND CENTURY A.D.

6 1/2 in. (281 grams total, 16.5 cm high including stand).

The goddess of love rising from the sea, standing nude and bearing the weight on her right leg; her head turned to the right and looking down, finely worked facial detailing with marked eyelids and shallow pupils; the bountiful hair tied back in a low chignon with six long ringlets falling on her shoulders, wearing a diadem; a narrow sash wrapped around her back, holding one end pressed against her left breast and the coiled end held in her right hand; standing on a pedestal base.

Ex German art market, 2000s.
Acquired from an EU collector living in London.
From the collection of a Surrey, UK, gentleman.

This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by a search certificate number no.12747-236332.
This lot has been cleared against the Art Loss Register database, and is accompanied by an illustrated lot declaration signed by the Head of the Antiquities Department, Dr Raffaele D'Amato.

See Boucher, S. & Tassinari, S., Musée de la Civilisation Gallo-Romaine a Lyon: Bronzes Antiques I. Inscriptions, Statuaire, Vaisselle, Lyon, 1976, item 65, for type; see also Reinach, S., Répertoire de la statuaire grecque et romaine, Paris, 1897, p.359, no.2; see also for the costume of the goddess Catullo, L., L'Antica Villa Romana del Casale di Piazza Armerina nel Passato e nel Presente, Messina, 2000, pp.60-63.

The goddess is depicted in the act of girding her chest with a fascia, similar to the one illustrated in the famous mosaics of Piazza Armerina, where the band is worn together with a subligaculum that covers her lower parts. It is modelled after a real two-piece bath costume of the ancient Romans.