Venus of Rome

Identified as Venus of Rome from the inscription on the front side of the base, this porcelain sculpture cannot be traced back to any ancient example. It is likely a souvenir statuette in an antiquarian style, conceived by the Roman sculptor and restorer Bartolomeo Cavaceppi. This is revealed by the engraving on the frontispiece of the second volume of his Collection of Ancient Statues from 1768, which depicts the sculptor holding his tools with, behind him resting on a table, a statuette identical to the one we are considering here.

Intended as an ancient-style sculpture to be offered to travellers on the Grand Tour, the work probably is derived from an ancient marble statue restored and reinterpreted in subject by Bartolomeo Cavaceppi, who sold it to the Englishman Enrico Jennings. The relationship between Cavaceppi and Carlo Ginori dates back to 1756 and is connected to the latter’s acquisition of moulds and plaster casts from ancient statuary present in Rome.

In the model collection of the Ginori factory, there is a plaster cast (inv. 111) of the iconographic type of our statuette. The treatment of its surface with baked oil shows that it was used to create the moulds necessary for its transformation into porcelain. Compared to this model, the porcelain version features a modest variant in the covering of the breasts with a slight drape falling from the left shoulder.