The J. Paul Getty Museum has acquired two full-scale bronze versions of the Venus de’ Medici and the Dancing Faun, cast after the Hellenistic statues in Florence by the Eighteenth Century Florentine sculptor Pietro Cipriani (circa 1680‱745).
“The acquisition of these two life-size bronze casts is not only a great addition to our collection and to the greater public collection of Los Angeles, but will also provide a superb example of the continuum between antique sculpture and the later European tradition,” said Michael Brand, director of the J. Paul Getty Museum.
“English visitors on a Grand Tour to Italy in the Eighteenth Century marveled at the renowned Hellenistic figures in Florence on which these works are based, and then sought out lasting impressions of their own,” he added. “Now, visitors to the Getty will also have the opportunity to appreciate the superlative artistic and technical skill of these bronzes versions. They will be crown jewels in our neoclassical sculpture galleries.”
For centuries, artists, patrons and collectors have been fascinated by the Graeco-Roman artistic tradition. As part of a classical education they would visit Italy to perfect their knowledge of classical culture and literature, where they would also have the opportunity to study architecture, sculpture and painting, and collect antiquities. This reverence for antique culture predominated the Eighteenth Century, and sculptural replicas †typically small scale and transportable †of famous sculptures from classical antiquity were frequently brought home, particularly to England, by Grand Tourists returning from Southern Europe.
In 1722, George Parker, later the second earl of Macclesfield, commissioned Pietro Cipriani, one of the most gifted bronze sculptors of his generation in Florence, to make full-scale casts of two of the most famous Hellenistic sculptures for display at his family’s seat, Shirburn Castle in Oxfordshire, England.
The bronzes were modeled after the Venus de’ Medici and the so-called Dancing Faunncient marbles from the renowned Medici collections, which had been prominently displayed in the Tribuna of the Uffizi since the 1600s, and which were of particular importance to any Grand Tourist and art enthusiast visiting Florence.
The sculptures celebrate the two major deities associated with sensual pleasures, Venus and Bacchus. Venus, the Roman Goddess of Love, is shown in the role of the Venus Pudica (“chaste Venus”) †shielding her breasts and genitals with her hands as she is surprised by an unannounced visitor †while the Dancing Faun or Satyr with a kroupezion, is shown with musical instruments, as he entices a nymph to dance.
Cipriani’s bronzes move far beyond simple notions of the “souvenir” by way of their large scale, and by the superlative quality of the unique bronze casts; furthermore, the original plaster molds were destroyed immediately after casting to prevent the production of a second edition.
The precision of the sculptural recreations is impeccable, and Cipriani reveals his debt to his master Massimilano Soldani Benzi, with whom he trained and worked and whose own versions of these figures, cast for the Prince of Leichtenstein (completed between 1697 and 1702), and for John Churchill, first duke of Marlborough (completed in 1711) were models for this pair.
Cipriani used bronze for his versions rather than recreating the sculptures in marble because of the widespread notion in the Eighteenth Century that the ancient marbles were copies after bronze originals. Cipriani also takes artistic license in eliminating the dolphin ridden by putti below Venus’s leg, which serves as a support in the marble version, and liberates the figure from unnecessary elements.
The Venus de’ Medici and the Dancing Faun are major additions to the Getty’s collection of Eighteenth Century European sculpture. They will go on view in the next few months in the West Pavilion gallery devoted to neoclassical sculpture. There they will complement Joseph Nollekens’s marble figures of Juno, Minerva and Venus, as well as adding a colorful accent to the primarily white marble gallery with their warm, translucent brown patinas.
The Getty Center is at 1200 Getty Center Drive. For information, www.getty.edu or 310-440-7300.
