page_title: Bathing Venus
hierarchical_section_title: Bathing Venus
caption_attribution_description: English: Artist: Giambologna Year: 1597 Type: Bronze sculpture Dimension: 1,12 m height Owner: Private Collection
context_page_description: {{Multiple issues|
  The Bathing Venus is a bronze sculpture attributed to Giambologna, the leading late Renaissance sculptor in Europe. It was most likely created for King Henry IV of France with other bronzes as a diplomatic gift from Ferdinando I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, to embellish the gardens of the Royal castle in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. A Mercury in the Louvre, recently attributed to Hans Reichle and Giambologna's Triton in the Metropolitan Museum of Art were likely to have been also part of this grand-ducal gift. Documents relating to the commission have recently been discovered in the Florentine State Archives.
  To enhance the erotic attraction of the female nude, the artist has contrived that the goddess hides her face behind her raised arm holding up a vessel, with which she is bathing. With the other hand she dries herself with a handkerchief. The beholder can approach her without entering her line of sight and when he is in front of her there is a moment of reciprocal discovery. The seated statue is a second remodelled and rethought version of a marble Venus by the same artist, today in the J. Paul Getty Museum.
context_section_description: {{Multiple issues|
  The Bathing Venus is a bronze sculpture attributed to Giambologna (1529-1608), the leading late Renaissance sculptor in Europe. It was most likely created for King Henry IV of France with other bronzes as a diplomatic gift from Ferdinando I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, to embellish the gardens of the Royal castle in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. A Mercury in the Louvre, recently attributed to Hans Reichle and Giambologna's Triton in the Metropolitan Museum of Art were likely to have been also part of this grand-ducal gift. Documents relating to the commission have recently been discovered in the Florentine State Archives.
  To enhance the erotic attraction of the female nude, the artist has contrived that the goddess hides her face behind her raised arm holding up a vessel, with which she is bathing. With the other hand she dries herself with a handkerchief. The beholder can approach her without entering her line of sight and when he is in front of her there is a moment of reciprocal discovery. The seated statue is a second remodelled and rethought version of a marble Venus by the same artist, today in the J. Paul Getty Museum. The two versions show so many similarities that they must derive from a common starting point – most likely a full-scale model, a „modello in grande“. It is documented that Giambologna followed the practice of making full-scale models and keeping them in his workshop.
  The bronze Venus was rediscovered in the late 1980s in the possessions of a scrap-metal dealer near Paris, who seems to have obtained it from the demolition of the Château of Chantemesle (Corbeil-Essonnes) in the early 1960s. It was at first dismissed as a later copy after the Getty Venus, but recent research has argued its autograph authorship by Giambologna.
caption: Bathing Venus (Bronze) by Giambologna (1597) Dimension: 1,12 m height Owner: Private Collection
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