A Roman Marble Head of Venus (Capitoline Type)

Circa 1st Century B.C.-1st Century A.D.

Height 11 inches (28 cm).

Property from a New York Private Collection

Provenance:

Private Collection, Chicago, prior to 1996.

Harlan J. Berk Ltd., 90th Buy or Bid Sale, 17 April 1996, lot 551.

Galerie Cahn, Basel, Switzerland, 2016-2020. [Inv. no. L-13575]

(Art Loss Register no. S00116086)

Exhibited:

The European Fine Art Fair, Maastricht, 7-15 March 2020.

Appropriately for the ancient goddess of love and sensuality, one of the first statues of a nude woman in the Greek world was the Aphrodite from Knidos by the 4th century B.C. master-sculptor Praxiteles. Considered a shocking innovation at the time, the goddess was shown stepping out of the bath, coquettishly covering (as well as drawing attention to) her beautiful, bared body. The format was widely copied in the following centuries. Of the numerous Roman variations known, the so-called “Capitoline” type is thought to be the most faithful to the Greek original. Inclined slightly downwards and to the left, this head surely belonged to a full-length statue of that type. The languorous eyelids, slightly parted lips, and wavy locks piled upon the head all speak to a Roman treatment of the subject of the highest quality, perhaps once intended for a lavish garden setting.