天美传媒

This is a cast of the Crouching Aphrodite (Venus de Vienne). It is a 19th Century plaster cast of a Roman copy of a statue by Daidalos of Bithynia, of the third century B.C. Aphrodite鈥檚 nude physique and voluptuous figure characterize her as the Greek goddess of love. First at Vienne, France, the original is presently at the Louvre Museum. On the rear of the pedestal is a brass impression with the name of the Louvre casting atelier and the number that identified it in the catalogue used to order plaster casts from the atelier: 834.

The original from which this cast was made is a Roman marble of the 2nd century A.D., which was based on a Greek model of the 5th-4th centuries B.C. Today the Roman marble is in the Palazzo Altemps (Rome, Italy).

The marble from which this cast was made was carved in the 2nd century A.D. by a Roman sculptor. The marble was based on the lost Greek bronze statue of Hera by Polykleitos, made circa 420 B.C., which was displayed at the Temple of Hera outside of Argos. The version of Hera reproduced in this plaster cast is related to the that known as the 鈥淔arnese鈥� Hera, which was once owned by the Farnese family, who amassed one of the richest Renaissance collections of antiquities. This cast was part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection, catalog number 592. It was likely purchased from Ceasare Malpieri in Rome as the Farnese Juno in 1892.

This plaster cast was made from a bronze sculpture of Hypnos, which was discovered near Perugia, Italy in 1868. When it was discovered, the bronze was thought to be Greek, but it is now understood to be a Roman version based on a Greek design. The Roman bronze is now in the British Museum. Hypnos is of the male god of sleep. Where the metal armature protruding from the proper right side of the cast is now, there was once a wing, one of Hypnos鈥� attributes. The color of the cast has degraded and faded, but once must have suggested a copper-rich bronze surface. Other 19th century-plaster casts of this work are owned by the Slater Museum in Norwich, Connecticut and Museum of Classical Archeology at Cambridge University (U.K.) All three of the plaster casts have the same circular base, which was provided by the caster Domenico Brucciani. The cast was purchased by The Metropolitan Museum of Art from Brucciani.

The original from which this cast was made is a bronze full-length sculpture of a nude boxer from the Hellenistic period. The original is one of the finest examples of bronze casting to survive from the ancient world. The bronze was discovered in 1885 on the south slope of the Quirinal Hill in Rome. It is now part of the Museo Nazionale Romano- Massimo alle Terme. This plaster cast has been given a faux-bronze patina. The cast was purchased by The Metropolitan Museum of Art from the Roman castmaker Michele Gherardi through Caroline Rosenkranz Vedder in 1892.