After Giambologna (1529-1608), Italian, Florence, 17th/ 18th century

Giambologna's Cesarini Venus was the sculptor's final exploration in marble of the single female nude. Carved in 1583, it was commissioned by Giangiorgio II Cesarini, Marquis of Civitanova, and executed on the orders of Grand Duke Francesco I de' Medici (1541-1587). The marble, today housed in the Palazzo Margherita, the American embassy in Rome, is nonetheless thought to derive from an earlier wax model used in the casting of a signed bronze statuette of Venus drying herself from the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (inv. no. 5874). This statuette has been identified with a bronze 'figurina' sent, according to Raffaello Borghini, as a gift from Francesco I to his future brother-in-law, the Emperor Maximilian II, towards the end of 1564. The Cesarini Venus became one of Giambologna's most celebrated and highly praised models, with reductions being cast by Antonio and Gianfrancesco Susini and later by other workshops.

The present cast is a fine rendition of the model, with remnants of a reddish lacquer locating its origin in Florence. The bronze varies from Giambologna's original model in the inclusion of a swathe of drapery running across the figure's midriff. It has been suggested that this feature was introduced by Massimiliano Soldani-Benzi (1656-1740), whose workshop is known to have cast the model in the first half of the 18th century. Compare a similar bronze formerly with Tomasso Brothers Fine Art, published in op. cit. 2016.

RELATED LITERATURE

C. Avery and A. Radcliffe (eds.), Giambologna 1529-1608. Sculptor to the Medici, exh. cat. Arts Council of Britain and Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, London, 1978, pp. 62-63; C. Avery, Giambologna. The Complete Sculpture, London, 1993, no. 14, pp. 30, 107; Important European Bronzes, exh. cat. Tomasso Brothers Fine Art, New York, 2016, pp. 118-121, no. 21