Bathing Venus (Bronze) by Giambologna (1597) Dimension: 1,12 m height Owner: Private CollectionFemale Figure, also known as "Venus" or "Bathseba" (Marble) by Giambologna (1571-1573) with modern replacements (e.g. vessel erroneously replaced), J. Paul Getty Museum
The Bathing Venus is a large bronze sculpture attributed to Giambologna (1529-1608), the leading late Renaissance sculptor in Europe. Archival documents suggest that it was presented to King Henri IV of France with other bronzes as a
diplomatic gift from Ferdinando I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, to embellish the gardens of the Royal castle in Saint-Germain-en-Laye.[1] Giambologna's Triton in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a Mercury in the Louvre[2] were likely to have been also part of this grand-ducal gift.
The bronze Venus is a second, remodelled and rethought version of a marble Venus, the so-called Bathsheba, by the same artist, which, after its rediscovery, entered the collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum in 1982.
The bronze Venus reappeared around 1960 in the possession of a scrap-metal dealer near Paris, who seemed to have obtained it from the Château de Chantemesle[3] (sometimes spelt Chantemerle) in Corbeil-Essonnes (Île-de-France), which had been demolished in the same years. After having been first described as a Swedish late 17th century aftercast of the Getty Venus,[4] the bronze is today internationally recognized by leading scholars as an autograph work by Giambologna.[5]
The German expert for Florentine sculpture Nicole Hegener considered the rediscovery of the bronze Bathing Venus as “the kind of sensation that occurs only once a century”.[6]
Bathing Venus (Bronze): Detail of head, hair and vesselBathing Venus (Bronze): Back view
^By B. Truyols. See: A. Rudigier, B. Truyols: “Giambologna. Court Sculptor to Ferdinando I. His art, his style and the Medici gifts to Henri IV“ (2019), pp. 311-366.
^A. Rudigier, «Les bronzes envoyés de Florence à Saint-Germain-en-Laye, la Vénus de 1597 et les dernières oeuvres de Jean Bologne», in: Bulletin monumental 174, 3 (2016), 287-356. For further discussion see G. Bresc-Bautier, À propos de Jean Bologne et les jardins d'Henri IV. Observations, in: Bulletin monumental 176, 4 (2018), pp. 321-322 and A. Rudigier, À propos de Jean Bologne et les jardins d' Henri IV. Réponse [aux observations de Geneviève Bresc-Bautier], in: Bulletin monumental 176, 4 (2018), pp. 321-324. See also : https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/192729?ft=giambologna&offset=0&rpp=40&pos= (for the Triton) and https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010092360 (for the Mercury).
^"Veuë et Perspectiue de la Maison de Cha..." israel.silvestre.fr (in French). Retrieved 2020-09-06.[permanent dead link]
^P. Fogelman, P. Fusco and M. Cambareri, eds.: Italian and Spanish Sculpture. Catalogue of the J. Paul Getty Museum Collection, Los Angeles 2002.
^Among them Charles Avery, David Ekserdjian, Bertrand Jestaz, Claudia Kryza- Gersch, Lars Olof Larsson, Philippe Malgouyres, Nicholas Penny, Eike D. Schmidt and Jeremy Warren.
^N. Hegener, Eine badende Venus im Kreuzfeuer der kunsthistorischen Kritik: Bausteine für eine Neubewertung von Giambolognas Oeuvre, in Kunstchronik, December 2020, p. 588.
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