Relief, marble, Venus Anadyomene, by Antonio Lombardo, Italy (Venice), ca.1508-1516

Marble relief depicting Venus rising from the waves. Her left foot rests on a shell, as she wrings the sea water from her hair with both hands. A latin inscription runs along the length of the base.

Purchased with Art Fund support

Provenance: Thomas, 8th Earl of Pembroke (1645-1732), Wilton House; by inheritance to successive Earls of Pembroke, Wilton House; 2 June 1964 bought by Wildenstein & Co. at auction at Christie's, London, 2 June 1964 (lot 98); bought by the Museum from Wildenstein & Co. for £5775, with the assistance of the National Art-Collectors Fund.

In an article in Apollo, Pope-Hennessy (1964) claims that the relief is by Antonio Lombardo and that the figure derives directly from that of Giorgione's paintings; stating that "nowhere in marble is the search for a three-dimensional equivalent to Giorgione's voluptuous figures as clearly to be read as it is here". Peta Motture in European Sculpture at the Victoria and Albert Museum (1996) describes the composition as apparently based on descriptions of a lost work by the Greek painter Apelles, which also inspired Botticelli's Birth of Venus.

Pope-Hennesy's attribution to Antonio Lombardo is disputed by Anthony Radcliffe in the catalogue for The Genius of Venice. He cites the large empty spaces in the background as uncharacteristic of Antonio's work and notes that the sensuous form of the body and face are closer to the female figures of Antonio's brother Tullio. He concludes however, that the unbalanced composition is foreign to both brothers and suggests that a sculptor, perhaps of a younger generation is responsible for the work and identifies Mosca as a potential candidate. This opinion has since been revised and the attribution remains that of Antonio Lombardo, as it appears in European Sculpture at the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1996.

This relief formed part of a cycle of carvings of mythological figures by the Venetian sculptor Antonio Lombardo (ca. 1458 - 1516). The inscription on the base is taken from Book III of Ovid's Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love), in which the poet describes a gem incised with an image of Venus rising from the sea, in which "naked Venus is wringing her spray-drenched tresses" (line 224, trans. J. H. Mozley). This quotation signalled to the learned viewer not only the ancient origins of the subject matter, but also the rivalry between the arts of sculpture and poetry, a perennial topic of debate among painters, sculptors, and writers.

A.19-1964