The Barberini Venus,

Jenkins Jenkins may refer to: People * Jenkins (name), history of the surname * List of people with surname Jenkins * The Jenkins, country music group Places United States * Jenkins, Illinois *Jenkins, Kentucky * Jenkins, Minnesota * Jenkins, Missour ...

Venus or Weddell Venus is a sculpture and copy of the

Aphrodite of Cnidus The Aphrodite of Knidos (or Cnidus) was an Ancient Greek sculpture of the goddess Aphrodite created by Praxiteles of Athens around the 4th century BC. It was one of the first life-sized representations of the nude female form in Greek history, d ...

, along the lines of the

Venus de Medici The Venus de' Medici or Medici Venus is a tall Hellenistic marble sculpture depicting the Greek goddess of love Aphrodite. It is a 1st-century BC marble copy, perhaps made in Athens, of a bronze original Greek sculpture, following the type of ...

. Its torso is a Hadrianic copy in

Parian marble Parian marble is a fine-grained, semi translucent, and pure-white marble quarried during the classical antiquity, classical era on the Greece, Greek List of islands of Greece, island of Paros in the Aegean Sea. A subtype, referred to as Parian ' ...

of the same type as the Venus de' Medici, with 18th-century restorations.

18th century

The sculpture of

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is often called Earth's "twin" or "sister" planet for having almost the same size and mass, and the closest orbit to Earth's. While both are rocky planets, Venus has an atmosphere much thicker ...

was previously in the

Barberini The House of Barberini is a family of the Italian nobility that rose to prominence in the 17th century Rome. Their influence peaked with the election of Cardinal Maffeo Barberini to the papal throne in 1623, as Pope Urban VIII. Their urban pal ...

collection, during which time its left leg and the support were added. The Barberini Venus was purchased in 1763 by

Gavin Hamilton Gavin Hamilton may refer to: * Gavin Hamilton (archbishop of St Andrews) (died 1571), archbishop of St Andrews * Gavin Hamilton (bishop of Galloway) (1561–1612), bishop of Galloway * Gavin Hamilton (artist) (1723–1798), Scottish artist * Ga ...

, a Scottish connoisseur in Rome who acted as guide to the British ''milordi''. It was later bought by Thomas Jenkins, the English antiquities dealer and banker to the English community established in Rome, and then from him in the spring of 1765 by

William Weddell William Weddell (13 May 1736 – 30 April 1792) of Newby Hall in the parish of Skelton-on-Ure, near Ripon in the West Riding of Yorkshire, was a British landowner and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1766 and 1792. He created ...

Newby Hall Newby Hall is a country house beside the River Ure in the parish of Skelton-on-Ure in North Yorkshire, England. It is south-east of Ripon and south of Topcliffe Castle, by which the manor of Newby was originally held. A Grade I listed buildi ...

, Yorkshire, who was on the Grand Tour. The undisclosed sum for which it changed hands this third time was reputedly the most ever paid for an antiquity in the eighteenth century. A customs declaration, intended to speed its export from the papal dominions, details the extensive restorations it had undergone in Jenkins' care. The arms were restored while the sculpture belonged to Hamilton or Jenkins – Jenkins often employed Pietro Pacilli or

Bartolomeo Cavaceppi Bartolomeo Cavaceppi (c. 1716 – December 9, 1799) was an Italian sculptor who worked in Rome, where he trained in the studio of the acclimatized Frenchman, Pierre-Étienne Monnot, and then in the workshop of Carlo Antonio Napolioni, a restore ...

for such work – and it also received a head from a separate source.The English sculptor

Joseph Nollekens Joseph Nollekens R.A. (11 August 1737 – 23 April 1823) was a sculptor from London generally considered to be the finest British sculptor of the late 18th century. Life Nollekens was born on 11 August 1737 at 28 Dean Street, Soho, London, ...

was of the opinion that it had been a head of

Agrippina the Younger Julia Agrippina (6 November AD 15 – 23 March AD 59), also referred to as Agrippina the Younger, was Roman empress from AD 49 to 54, the fourth wife and niece of emperor Claudius, and the mother of Nero. Agrippina was one of the most prominent ...

that had had a veil trimmed away by the restorer, who also trimmed the neck to fit the torso. Perhaps as a result, the hair style of the Weddell Venus is unlike that of the other versions of this Praxitelean type. Weddell returned to Newby in the summer of 1765 and commissioned first the Yorkshire architect John Carr and then, in 1766,

Robert Adam Robert Adam (3 July 17283 March 1792) was a British neoclassical architect, interior designer and furniture designer. He was the son of William Adam (architect), William Adam (1689–1748), Scotland's foremost architect of the time, and train ...

to design a suitable gallery for the sculptures and other antiquities he had purchased in Rome. The result was a domed rotunda in which the Weddell Venus had a prominent

niche Niche may refer to: Science *Developmental niche, a concept for understanding the cultural context of child development and growth *Ecological niche, a term describing the relational position of an organism's species *Niche differentiation, in ec ...

, flanked by rectangular galleries, decorated with refined Neoclassical plasterwork and forming a top-lit Neoclassical tribune.

Auction

It broke the world auction record for an antiquity after selling for almost £8 million at Christie's London in 2002. After the auction, export was delayed while a vain attempt was made to match the bid of Sheikh Saud-al-Thani, cousin of the

Emir of Qatar The Emir of the State of Qatar () is the monarch and head of state of the country. The emir is also the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces and guarantor of the Constitution. The emir holds the most powerful position in the country, and has a ...

, where the Weddell Venus currently resides. A laser-made Carrara marble copy replaces the original at Newby.

Notes

External links

UK Department of Culture Media and Sport) "Arts Minister Places Temporary Export Bar On A Roman Marble Statue Of Venus"
2003.

* ttp://arachne.uni-koeln.de/item/objekt/23411The Barberini Venus in the Arachne Database. {{Sculptures of Aphrodite Cnidian Venuses Capitoline Venuses

Roman copies of 4th-century BC Greek sculptures Archaeological discoveries in Italy