About This Object
An exquisite pair of 'Grand Tour' bronze busts, one after the Belvedere Antinous (also known as Hermes-Antinous), the other one after the Medici Venus; on gilt and patinated bronze plinths
France, mid-19th century.
Exquisite quality and colour, original condition.
Why we like them
Coveted by the 19th century intellectuals and aesthetes, such exquisite objects were not mere decorations, but symbols of their owner's classical values and refined taste.
Antinous is depicted as a beautiful young man, wearing a fillet across his forehead, his luxuriant curls of hair crowned with vine leaves. His downcast gaze is fixed in a calm expression, and his youthful features are characterised by softly modelled cheeks, a straight nose and full lips.
History
The Medici Venus, preserved at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, is Hellenistic marble sculpture depicting the Greek goddess of love Aphrodite. It is a 1st-century BC marble copy, perhaps made in Athens, of a bronze original Greek sculpture, following the type of the Aphrodite of Knidos.
Antinous, a youth from the province of Bithynia on the Black Sea coast, was the beloved companion of the Roman Emperor Hadrian, and in October 130 CE he drowned in the River Nile. Hadrian was grief-stricken and, soon after, he declared that the youth had been reborn as a god. In art Antinous was often assimilated with traditional Roman gods.
The antique marble statue of Antinous Belvedere was first mentioned in 1543 when Pope Paul III purchased it for the Belvedere garden. It quickly became highly admired and was subsequently copied in many materials throughout the following centuries. The statue is today displayed in the Museo Pio-Clementino (no. 907). A cast by the Zoffoli foundry with the signature erased can be found in the Louvre (inv. no. OA 12004).
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