Venus Pudica (Medici-type) - 18th century, Italy

Bronze crabe Padua, 18th century bronze 2 x 10 x 7 cm (One of the crab’s legs is missing its end) This finely cast bronze sculpture of a crab reflects the enduring interest in natur...

Cerberus Black painted stone Italy, 17th century Measures: 80 x 69 x 36cm (one head missing) Cerberus, cruel monster, fierce and strange, Through his wide threefold throat barks as a dog Over the multitude immers'd beneath. His eyes glare crimson, black his unctuous beard, His belly large, and claw'd the hands, with which He tears the spirits, flays them, and their limbs Piecemeal disparts (Dante, Inferno, Canto VI). Cerberus figure seated, in his role of ferocious guardian of the underworld; he shows a nervous musculature, an adherent skin which reveals the ribs, long and robust limbs; his heads are broad and the eyes set well apart. Painted in black to amplify his menacing look, the infernal guardian is depicted with his famous attributes, writhing his heads, growling and barking furiously. Cerberus, in Greek mythology, was the monstrous watchdog of the underworld – also known as the “hound of Hades” – preventing the dead from leaving, and making sure that those who entered never left. A child of Typhon and Echidna, he was part of a monstrous family, which included Orthus, the Lernaean Hydra, and the Chimaera as well. Only on three occasions Cerberus was tricked by visitors of Hades: Heracles did it with his strength, Orpheus with his music. In "The Inferno", Dante places Cerberus as the guardian of the third circle of Hell. With his three mouths, Dante saw Cerberus as a beast that was synonymous with the sin of Gluttony. Virgil gets past the monster by throwing mud in his three mouths, temporarily choking him. Very rare are the representations of Cerberus in ancient statuary...

18th century Grand Tour Cinerarium Limestone, inlaid with Roman marble fragments and fresco's Annotation of finding spot indistinctively written on the fragments ("forum trajan","for...

Bacchus 
Southern Italy, late 17th century
 Alabaster Sculpture
 H: 20 cm A finely carved 17th-century alabaster sculpture of a naked Bacchus. This Italian alabaster figure depicts ...

A most elegant Italian 19th century white Carrara marble statue of Venus de Medici. This stunning statue depicts the elegant Venus caught in a momentary pose, as if surprised in the ...

"Venus Pudica", glazed terracotta sculpture, Salvatore Vitagliano, Naples 1970.

Venus medici - head in carrara white marble. Late 19th century Measures: Height 36 cm Width 20 cm Depth 19 cm Weight 15 kg Maximum projection 44 cm Statue base 12 x 10 cm Place where...

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...