Lot 894 Dα

Antonio Canova created the Venus Italica after 1802, presumably as a replacement for the Roman marble statue of the Venus Italica, which was transferred from the Uffizi to the Louvre by Napoleon. Canova was able to depict the softness of human skin like no other sculptor of his time. It took him weeks or months to achieve the desired effect.


A bust of the Venus Italica from 1816, i.e. from Canova's lifetime, has been housed in the SKD sculpture collection since 2001, inv. no. ZV 4263. The Nationalgalerie Berlin owns the Hebe from 1796, which King Friedrich Wilhelm III acquired in 1825, as well as a bronze version of the Venus Italica by Graux-Marly Paris, created around 1845/46.