Belgian Black Marble Figurative Sculptures

Hercules holding a coat of arms Flemish, XVII century White and black marble Measures: 67 x 32 x 19 cm Hercules is depicted naked, holding a coat of arms with the right hand an...

18th Century, Italian Bronze Sculpture with Venus Removing Her Sandal This bronze sculpture represents Venus as she takes off her sandal. Made in the neoclassical era in Italy, it consists of the bronze sculpture of the Greek goddess Aphrodite, Venus for the Romans. The naked goddess, getting ready for the bath, makes the very human gesture of loosing a sandal. The left arm is raised, as if to compensate the position while maintaining the balance. Next to her, wrapped around a rocky spur, is a dolphin, an animal iconographically linked to the goddess because of his birth from the foam of the sea. The figure rests on a cylindrical and concave bronze base, with finely chiselled reserves. The bronze element is in turn resting on a africano marble cylinder with black of Belgium marble base. Venus is one of the major Roman goddesses primarily associated with eros and beauty. It is traditionally understood as the equivalent of the Greek goddess Aphrodite, goddess of beauty, physical and passionate love, among the major deities of Olympus. His birth is due to a dramatic event: Uranus, Heaven, is mutilated by his son Cronus, who punishes him for the wrongs inflicted on his mother. The torn limbs of Uranus fall into the sea and fertilize the foam of the waves of the island of Cyprus. From the waves emerges in all its splendor Aphrodite. Since the 4th century, Aphrodite begins to be represented with characters more human and less heroic. Praxiteles with the 'Aphrodite Cnidia,' for the first time in the history of sculpture, depicts her naked, as she prepares to take a ritual bath. From the Pressitele’s model descend the Capitoline Venus (Capitoline Museums of Rome) and the Venus de’ Medici (Uffizi Museum of Florence) accompanied by Eros on the back of a dolphin. This vein also includes a subject frequently attested in the Hellenistic and then Roman Ages, with examples in bronze, marble and terracotta: the Aphrodite who fastens the sandal. The luck that this type of representation had in the following centuries is demonstrated by the vast number of sculptures that represent it. In this bronze work the goddess resumes the position of Oplontis’s Naked Venus: here Venus holds an apple in her left hand, a reminder of her victory in the beauty contest in which she prevailed over Minerva and Juno by judgment of Paris. In our bronze instead, the hand seems to want to shake the apple, which however has not been molded. Perhaps the bronze is inspired by another work, such as the bronzes kept in the archaeological museum of Padua. Another example is the famous 'Venus in bikini" found in Pompeii, so-called because it depicts the goddess in the same pose, but with the breasts and hips covered by bands painted in gold. The dolphin depicted next to it could be inspired instead to the Medici Venus...