Venus (c. 1560): Art, History and Details

Venus (c. 1560) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Danese Cattaneo (Italian, 1509–1573).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Cattaneo's Venus is reminiscent of the ancient Aphrodite of Knidos by Praxiteles (Greek, c. 375–340 BC), as Venus holds her drapery in her right hand, leaving her body fully exposed. This work recalls Cattaneo's bronze sculptures of goddesses with the unbalanced curvature of the body and elaborately sculpted hair. Along with the hands and feet, the back of the figure is largely unfinished, indicating that it probably originally stood against a wall or in a niche.

Object facts

• Title: Venus
• Date: c. 1560
• Creator attribution: Danese Cattaneo (Italian, 1509–1573)
• Culture: Italy
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: bronze
• Dimensions: Overall: 52.9 x 20 x 12 cm (20 13/16 x 7 7/8 x 4 3/4 in.)
• Collection: Sculpture
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1950.578

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Milliken, William. "Two Renaissance Bronzes." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 38, no. 2 (February 1951): 36-37, 42-44.
• Francis, Henry Sayles. Venetian Tradition: Catalogue of the Exhibition. [Cleveland, Ohio]: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1956.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.