Large Bronze

"Venus à la Coquille" important antique sculpture in bronze and marble from the late 18th-19th century around 1800 depicting an allegorical composition after Antoine Coysevox (1640-1720) featuring the goddess kneeling near a large a shell resting on a cherry red marble plinth, this elegant sculpture, also known as Venus bathing, refers to ancient literature which mentions in Elis (near Olympia, Greece) the Aphrodite of the famous Greek sculptor Phidias ( 480-430 BC). Our subject, remarkable for its quality of carving and its precision of casting, was very fashionable in the 18th century, often represented with a male pendant the Arrotino cast around 1695 after the Antique by Giovanni Battista Foggini (1652-1725) to form a pair with the Venus of Versailles. The antique model is referenced at the Villa Medici from 1704. A marble is now in the Louvre Museum (inv. n° MR 1826), a bronze is in the Wallace Collection in London inventory n° MR 1853. Literature: - F. Haskell & N. Penny, For the Love of the Antique. Greco-Roman statuary and European taste, London, 1981, pp. 349-51. - R. Wenley, French Bronzes in the Wallace Collection, London, 2002, pp. 42-46.