VENERE

Antonio Canova is considered the most important sculptor of his time and the leading artist of Neoclassicism in Italy. The goddess Venus, on the other hand, is one of the preferred subjects in Neoclassical art, both in painting and sculpture. This sculpture represents the goddess Venus emerging from the water after her bath and covering herself out of modesty. It is an image already represented by ancient Greek and Roman sculptors, but compared to classical models, Canova imparts more realism and humanity to the sculpture. The position of the body is very natural, yet it also conveys a sense of movement. Starting in 1802, Canova created four different versions of this subject, never copying the ancient model but always creating something original. The first was made for Ludovico I, King of Etruria, who wanted to replace the famous Venus de' Medici, the Greek statue already housed in Florence and taken to Paris by Napoleon. The version at the Bailo Museum is the last one created by Canova, who modified and simplified some parts of the previous versions, such as the drapery Venus uses to cover herself. This sculpture is a plaster cast made in Canova's active workshop, and it reproduces the marble sculpture Canova created between 1817 and 1820 for Thomas Hope, a renowned English banker and collector passing through Rome. The marble is now housed at the City Art Gallery in Leeds, while the plaster cast arrived at the Treviso museums from Bruno Lattes' collection, donated in 1954.