ANTONIO FRILLI (ITALIAN, FL. LATE 19TH CENTURY), AFTER THE ANTIQUE

The Medici Venus is so called because it became famous during the 17th century when in the collection at the Villa Medici, Rome. Depicting the Greek goddess of love Aphrodite, and dating to the 1st-century BC, the original is itself a Hellenistic copy of an earlier bronze statue. Pope Innocent XI criticised it for eliciting lewd behaviour and it was sent to Florence in 1677 and occupied place of honour in the Tribuna of the Uffizi, where it was a high point of the Grand Tour and was universally esteemed as one of the half-dozen finest statues to have survived since antiquity. It was removed by order of Napoleon in 1802 but returned in 1815. Always admired and copied, Louis XIV had no less than five, in the 19th century studios like those of Pietro Bazzanti and Antonio Frilli made fine replicas for an international cliental, many no doubt were wealthy tourists wanting a memento of their visit to Florence.