Remarks of a Jagiellonian University professor concerning the statues of Venus seen in the year 1845 in Italian museums

Janusz A. Ostrowski
2013 Studies in Ancient Art and Civilization  
Apart from academic activities, he was also for some time involved in politics, which resulted in his emigration to Italy in 1848, during the turbulent period of this year's Revolutions. He died in Nice, which in 1860 was incorporated to France, and earlier had belonged to the Kingdom of Sardinia. He was buried in the capuchin church on the mount Cimies near Nice. During his stay in Italy in 1845 he visited monuments and museums, and made very detailed notes. Among others he wrote the first and
more » ... also only Polish description of the rooms and collections of the Museo Borbonico (nowadays the Museo Archeologico Nazionale) in Naples. He devoted whole sections to the ancient sculptures of Aphrodite-Venus. He compared various statues of Venus: the Capitoline Venus, the Medici Venus and the crouching Venus by Doidalsas. One of the numerous Roman copies of this work is kept in the museum in Naples, together with the statue of Venus Kallipygos, discovered in Rome in the 16th century. The same museum possesses also the so-called Venus of Capua, discovered c. 1750 and reconstructed with certain degree of liberty in 1820 by the sculptor Augusto Brunelli, disciple of Antonio Canova. Brunelli supplemented the arms, parts of the nose and garments; moreover, he added the figure of Eros, which by now had been removed, but can be seen on the 19th century drawings. Wiszniewski
doi:10.12797/saac.17.2013.17.29 fatcat:2crdojlcvjes3imkdzgpw6xzmi