6 Circle of
JACOPO SANSOVINO
Italian (active in Florence,
Rome, and Venice), 1486-1570
Venus and Cupid with Dolphin,
circa 1550
Bronze
88.9 cm (35 in.)
Inscribed under the base: F+B
(founder's mark?)
87.SB.50
Venus, with her full-bodied limbs and straight-nosed aWantica profile, reveals the
artists awareness of antique models. The sharp turn of her head to the left may be
inspired by the famous Venus de Medici; however, the Museum's figure does not
completely follow any single prototype. Almost all the famous antique statues of
Venus are shown with hands raised and positioned to hide the goddess's nakedness
or to lift drapery in some feigned gesture of modesty. The "non-pudica" aspect of
the bronze is startling by contrast.
The Venus is similar to the High Mannerist works executed in the 1540s and 1550s
by Italian artists such as Francesco Primaticcio and Jacopo Sansovino. The bronze finds
its closest stylistic parallels in the works of Sansovino, who is documented as having
executed two figures of Venus (now lost). Although no known nude female figures
by him have survived, Sansovino's extant documented works exhibit several elements
found in the Getty bronze: the unusually abstract treatment of the eyebrows, delineated
by a single, sharp, semicircular line that continues down to define the bridge of the
nose; the thin, slit eyes; the relatively small, slightly twisted mouth; the elaborate
coiffure with knobs of hair projecting up above a circular braid; the pair of barrettes
(which are identical to those in Sansovino's figure of Charity on a monument to Doge
Francesco Venier in the Church of San Salvatore, Venice); the figure's elongated limbs
and very substantial upper arms and thighs; the large but elegant hands and feet; and
the unusual position of the nose-diving dolphin with the series of distinct bumps
running up over its head and back (very like the dolphin accompanying Sansovino's
giant figure of Neptune in the courtyard of the Doge's Palace, Venice). Also similar to
Sansovino's works is the treatment of Venus's hands, which are bent at the wrists in an
affected, mannered fashion, with the fingers splayed open like a pinwheel. It seems
probable that the cupid in the Museum's work originally held up a now-missing arrow,
the sharpness of which Venus was testing with the tip of a finger. This would have
added to the sense of aloof, disdainful, and icily dangerous sensuality that permeates
the work. PFEUROPEAN SCULPTURE 29