The J. Paul Getty Museum

Statue of a Crouching Venus

Object Details

Title:

Statue of a Crouching Venus

Artist/Maker:

Unknown

Culture:

Roman

Place:

Roman Empire (Place Created)

Date:

A.D. 100–150

Medium:

Gray marble

Object Number:

55.AA.10

Dimensions:

115 × 56.7 × 72.6 cm (45 1/4 × 22 5/16 × 28 9/16 in.)

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Object Description

Statue of a crouching Venus accompanied by Cupid and a swan. Venus is missing the right arm below her shoulder, left forearm and foot, and part of the right foot. She is nude except for a serpent-like helixes (armlet) worn on her left arm. She leans forward, her arms crossed in front of her, left elbow braced on her left leg. She supports herself on the toes of her right foot, her leg bent such that she sits on her heel. Her head is turned sharply to her right. The figure of Cupid, standing behind her and to the right, is missing his head, left leg, and lower right leg. He clings tightly to Venus, his left hand stretched up along her back, the right extended forward around her right hip. The swan, compressed beneath the statue's left side, is likely a support. The statue is modelled after the Crouching Aphrodite type, attributed to the 3rd century B.C. sculptor Doidalsas of Bithynia.

Provenance
Provenance
before 1772

Bartolomeo Cavaceppi, Italian, 1716/1717 - 1799, sold to Admiral Lord George Anson or Thomas Anson, before 1772.

-

Admiral Lord George Anson, English, 1697 - 1762 (Shugborough Hall, Staffordshire, England)

-

or Thomas Anson, 1695 - 1773

by 1875 - 1901

Sir Francis Cook, 1st viscount of Montserrat, English, 1817 - 1901 (Doughty House, Richmond, England), by inheritance to his son, Sir Frederick Lucas Cook, 1901.

1901 -

Sir Frederick Lucas Cook, 2nd viscount of Montserrat, English, 1844 - 1920

by 1953 - 1954

Bert Crowther (Syon House, Middlesex, England)

1954 - 1955

Spink & Son, Ltd., sold to the J. Paul Getty Museum, 1955.

Exhibitions
Exhibitions
Grecian Taste and Roman Spirit: The Society of Dilettanti (August 7 to October 27, 2008)
  • The J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa (Malibu), August 7 to October 27, 2008
Collector's Choice: J. Paul Getty and His Antiquities (November 18, 2009 to February 8, 2010)
  • The J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa (Malibu), November 18, 2009 to February 8, 2010
Bibliography
Bibliography

Cavaceppi, Bartolomeo. Raccolta d'antiche statue. Rome: 1768-1772, vol. II, pl. 60.

Michaelis, Adolf. "Die Privatsammlungen antiker Bildwerke in England." Archaeologische Zeitung 32 (1875), p. 58.

Michaelis, Adolf Theodor Friedrich. Ancient Marbles in Great Britain (Cambridge: University Press, 1882), pp. 631-632, no. 40.

Arndt, Paul, and Walther Amelung. Photographische Einzelaufnahmen antiker Sculpturen (Munich: Verlagsanstalt für Kunst und Wissenschaft, 1893-1940), no. 4942.

Reinach, Salomon. Repertoire de la statuaire grecque et romaine. 6 vols. (Paris: E. Leroux, 1897-1930), vol. 1 (1897), p. 338, no. 2; pl. 627, fig. 1411.

Strong, Eugenie. "Antiques in the Collection of Sir Frederick Cook, Bart." Journal of Hellenic Studies 28 (1908), pp. 14-15, no. 16; pl. X.

Hekler, Antonio. "Monumenti funerari greci in Copenhagen." Ausonia V (1911), p. 6, note 2.

Kaschnitz von Weinberg, Guido. Sculture del magazzino del Museo Vaticano. Citta del vaticano: 1936-1937, pp. 134-35, under no. 282.

Munoz, Antonio. "Dal diario di Antonio Canova," L'Urbe, Anno II, no 12 (December 1937), pp. 26-40, p. 31, ill.

Lippold, Georg. Die griechische Plastik. Handbuch der Archaeologie. (Munich: Beck, 1950), Vol. III, 1, p. 319, nn. 7 and 9.

Adriani, A. "Contributo allo studio dell'Afrodite di Doedalsas." Bulletin de la Societe royale d'archeologie d'Alexandrie 39 (1951): 144-182, p. 148, note 2; p. 167, note 2; p. 173, no. 4.

Lullies, Reinhard. Die kauernde Aphrodite. Munich-Pasing: 1954, p. 37 ff.; no. 5.

Vermeule, Cornelius C. "Notes on a New Edition of Michaelis: Ancient Marbles in Great Britain." American Journal of Archaeology 59 (1955), p. 134.

Vermeule, Cornelius C. "Classical Collections in British Country Houses," Archaeology 8, 1 (Spring 1955), pp. 10-17, p. 13, ill.

Vermeule, Cornelius C., and Dietrich von Bothmer. "Notes on a New Edition of Michaelis: Ancient Marbles in Great Britain, II." American Journal of Archaeology 60 (1956), pp. 326, 461.

Valentiner, William R., and Paul Wescher. The J. Paul Getty Museum Guidebook. 2nd ed. (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1956), p. 11, no. 13.

Stothart, Herbert. A Handbook of the Sculpture in the J. Paul Getty Museum. (Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1965), p. 11, no. A55.S-4, ill. [front cover.].

Getty, J. Paul. The Joys of Collecting (New York: Hawthorn Books, Inc., 1965), pp. 70, 73.

Kuenzl, Ernst. Fruehhellenistische Gruppen. Dissertation, Universitaet zu Koeln: 1968, p. 121.

Linfert, Andreas. "Der Meister der Kauernden Aphrodite," Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts, Athenische Abteilung 84 (1969), pp. 158-164, comparanda.

Vermeule, Cornelius. "Aphrodite Unveiled," The North Carolina Museum of Art. Bulletin X, no. 1 (September 1970), pp. 2-11, p. 10, fig. 6.

Vermeule, Cornelius, and Norman Neuerberg. Catalogue of the Ancient Art in the J. Paul Getty Museum (Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1973), pp. 10-11, no. 19 (with bibliography).

Fredericksen, Burton B., ed. The J. Paul Getty Museum: Greek and Roman Antiquities, Western European Paintings, French Decorative Arts of the Eighteenth Century (Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1975), pp. 20, 28.

Sangermano, Louis, George E. Miller, and Don L. Bunker. "Chemical Analyses of Marble Sculptures: Crouching Aphrodite and the Westmacott Jupiter in the J. Paul Getty Museum." The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal 5 (1977), pp. 149-154, figs. 2-5.

Fredericksen, Burton B., Jiří Frel, and Gillian Wilson. Guidebook: The J. Paul Getty Museum. 4th ed. Sandra Morgan, ed. (Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1978), p. 26.

Brinkerhoff, Dericksen. "Hypotheses on the History of the Crouching Aphrodite Type in Antiquity." The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal, vols. 6/7 (1978-1979), pp. 83-96, pp. 83-85, and passim; figs. 1-3.

Delivorrias, Angelos, et al. "Aphrodite." Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae 1 (1984), p. 105, no. 1022.

Ridgway, Brunilde S. Hellenistic Sculpture I: The Style of Circa 331-200 B.C. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990), p. 232.

Pfrommer, Michael. Metalwork from the Hellenized East. Catalogue of the Collections. (Malibu: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 1993), p. 98, n. 787.

Kelperi, Evangelia. Der Schmuck der Nackten und Halbnackten Aphrodite. Frankfurt: 1997, p. 39; pl. 15.

Coltman, Viccy. "'Providence Send us a Lord': Joseph Nollekens and Bartolomeo Cavaceppi at Shugborough." In The Rediscovery of Antiquity: The Role of the Artist. Jane Fejfer et al., eds. Acta Hyperborea 10 (2003), pp. 386-388, fig. 9.

Danziger, Elon. "The Cook Collection, Its Founder and Its Inheritors." Burlington Magazine 146, no. 1216 (July 2004).

Spivey, Nigel and Squire, Michael. Panorama of the Classical World (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2004), p. 55, fig. 86.

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Barr, Judith. “The Voyages of a Crouching Venus.” The Iris (April 24, 2018), http://blogs.getty.edu/iris/the-voyages-of-a-crouching-venus/.