Girolamo Campagne - Juno In Bronze, Venice, End Of 16th Century

This beautiful full-length Juno accompanied by her peacock derives from a model made in Venice by Girolamo Campagna (1549-1625). Famous sculptor of the last decade of the 16th century, Campagna, along with Tiziano Aspetti, Alessandro Vittera and Roccatagliata, is part of an incredible generation of Venetian bronziers who gave the City of the Doges its letters of nobility in the field. At the head of a large workshop of masters, apprentices and students, he began the production of bronze sculptures in 1590. The female canon of our Juno, with full forms, generous thighs and chest round and high recalls that of the Venus Marina signed by Campagna, today kept at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. This is also the case for his drawn eyelids, his short nose and his narrow mouth, although the quality of their definition brings it closer to another font from the same model, this time attributed to a follower of the master. In the light of these connections and the very similar position adopted by our Juno, who similarly sketches an elegant contrapposto, right hand placed on her left breast, opposite arm falling along the body to grasp the animal and head turned three-quarters, our bronze presents itself as an original adaptation of the Venus Marina from the Campagna workshop. Three other similar variations could be identified in public collections: one at the National Gallery in Washington, another at the Musei Civici in Padua and a last one at that of Ferrara. Within this corpus, our Juno stands out for its greater fidelity to Campagna's original model.