A BRONZE GROUP OF VENUS AND A CUPID

This group of Venus and Cupid unites Dr. Truesdell's interest in the history of collecting with his fascination for late-Renaissance bronzes themselves, with its traceable provenance stretching back at least to the storied von Kaufmann collection catalogued by Wilhelm von Bode, in Berlin. It is described as a 'Stehende Venus mit Amor' and 'Diente wohl as Bekrönung eines Kaminbocks; von einem Meister aus der Nachfolger des Alessandro Vittoria...' As Anthony Radcliffe notes, this bronze appears to come very close to the work of Niccolò Roccatagliata (correspondence between Radcliffe and Professor Truesdell, 7 April 1975). The pose of this bronze was a popular one among Venetian sculptors in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries and was produced, with variations, in the workshops of Vittoria, Campagna, Aspetti and Roccatagliata.

The model upon which the bronze offered here is based has, on the basis of stylistic comparisons, been attributed by Weihrauch to the Paduan artist Danese Cattaneo (circa 1510-72). He illustrates one such example in his seminal work Europäische Bronzestatuetten, that can be found in the Art Institute of Chicago and goes on to mention two other examples in Cleveland and Reichenberg (Weihrauch, loc. cit.).