Museum number
C904
Object
Crouching Venus, Antonio Susini, bronze, about 1600
Description
A bronze sculpture, with original brown lacquer, Italian c. 1580 by Antonio Susini (fl 1580-1624) after Giambologna (1529-1608)The figure of a nude woman kneeling on her right knee on drapery folded on an oval base, left thigh parallel with the base, her torso slightly twisted with her right arm holding drapery below her left arm, the left arm raised and bent behind her head and holding the other end of the drapery, her head looking down to the left.
Materials
Bronze
Inscription
No 35 engraved on the back under the left shoulder.
On display?
Yes

Further description

Simple name
Figure
Subject
Allegorical
Dimensions
11cm (d) x 23.8cm (h) x 13cm (w)
Crouching Venus Antonio Susini Bronze, about 1600 C904 This elegantly twisting figure derives from ancient sculptures of the bathing Venus. Exquisite in detail and surface it was cast and finished by Susini from a model by the Florentine sculptor Giambologna. Susini worked in Giambologna’s studio from the mid-1570’s and his castings are often judged finer than his master’s. The bronze once belonged to Louis XIV of France. The ‘No. 35’ on her shoulder is the inventory mark of the French Royal Collection where it stayed until the Revolution in 1789.

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