BY PIETRO BAZZANTI (1825-1895), AFTER THE ANTIQUE, FLORENCE, LATE 19TH CENTURY

The Crouching Venus is a Hellenistic model of Venus surprised at her bath. The model is often related to a passage in Pliny the Elder's Natural History (xxxvi.35), enumerating sculptures in the Temple of Jupiter Stator in the Portico of Octavia, near the Roman Forum.
To judge by the number of copies that have been excavated on Roman sites in Italy and France, this variant on Venus seems to have been popular. A number of versions of the Crouching Venus in prominent collections (for example in the Uffizi, Florence and in the Louvre, Paris) have influenced modern sculptors since Giambologna and have been drawn by artists since Martin Heemskerck.