Venus Genetrix (sculpture)
Encyclopedia
The sculptural type of Venus Genetrix shows Venus
in her aspect of Genetrix (mother), as she was honoured by the Julio-Claudian dynasty of Rome, who followed the precedent of Julius Caesar
in claiming her as their ancestor. Through this historical chance, a Roman designation is applied to an iconological type of Aphrodite
that originated among the Greeks.
On the night before the decisive battle of Pharsalus
(48 BC) Julius Caesar vowed to dedicate a temple at Rome to Venus, supposed ancestor of his gens
. In fulfilment of his vow he erected a temple of Venus Genetrix in the new forum he constructed. Contemporary references identify the cult statue in the temple as by a certain Greek sculptor, Arkesilaos.
Two types, represented in many Roman examples in marble, bronze and terra cotta, contend among scholars for identification as representing the type of this draped Venus Genetrix. Besides the type described further below, is another, in which Venus carries an infant Eros
on her shoulder.
the Athenian sculptor Callimachus
created a bronze sculpture of Aphrodite (now lost), which, according to Pliny's Natural History showing her dressed in a light but clinging chiton
or peplos
, which was lowered on the left shoulder to reveal her left breast and hung down in a sheer face and decoratively carved so as not to hide the outlines of the woman's body. Venus was depicted holding the apple won in the Judgement of Paris
in her left hand, whilst her right hand moved to cover her head. From the lost bronze original are derived all surviving copies. The composition was frontal, the body's form monumental, and in the surviving Roman replicas its proportions are close to the Polyclitean canon.
, the statue of Venus Genetrix made by a certain Arkesilaos was set up by Julius Caesar
in his new forum
, probably in the cella
of his temple of Venus Genetrix
. This now-lost statue, or Sabina in the same pose, is represented on the reverse of a denarius above the legend VENERI GENETRICI, with Vibia Sabina
on the obverse. The iconological type of the statue, of which there are numerous Roman marble copies and bronze reductions at every level of skill, was identified as Venus Genetrix (Venus Universal Mother) by Ennio Quirino Visconti
in his catalogue of the papal collections, Museo Pio-Clementina, by comparison with this denarius. "From the inscription on the coins, from the similarity between the figure on the coins and the statue in the Louvre, and from the fact that Arkesilaos established the type of Venus Genetrix as patron goddess of Rome, and ancestress of the Julian race, the identification was a very natural one." A Venus Genetrix in the Museo Pio-Clementina has been completed with a Roman portrait head of Sabina, on this basis.
In establishing this new cult of Venus, reportedly in fulfillment of a vow made on the eve of the battle of Pharsalus
(48 BC)Caesar was affirming the claim of his own gens
to descent from the goddess, through Iulus, the son of Aeneas. It was in part to flatter this connection that Virgil
wrote the Aeneid
. His public cult expressed the unique standing of Caesar at the end of the Roman Republic
and in that sense of a personal association expressed as public cult was the innovation in Roman religion.
examples are in major collections, including the Centrale Montemartinihttp://wings.buffalo.edu/AandL/Maecenas/rome/acea/ac990634.html (discovered in the Gardens of Maecenas
), Detroit Institute of Arts
http://www.dia.org/collections/ancient/greece/74.53.html, Metropolitan Museum of Art
http://www.stoa.org/gallery/album224/P1010115, the Royal Ontario Museum
http://www.flickr.com/photos/maiac/162685222/, the J. Paul Getty Museum
http://www.getty.edu/art/collections/objects/o35447.html, the Louvre Museum, and the Hermitage Museum,.
marble, was discovered at Fréjus
(Forum Julii) in 1650. It is considered as the best Roman copy of the lost Greek work.
The neck, the left hand, the fingers of the right hand, the plinth, and many parts of the drape are modern restorations. It was present in the palace of the Tuileries
in 1678, and was transported from there to the park of Versailles
about 1685. It was seized on the Revolution, and has thus been in the Louvre since 1803, as Inventaire MR 367 (n° usuel Ma 525). The statue was restored in 1999 thanks to the patronage of FIMALAC
.
, Villa Campana, Rome, from which it was acquired for the Hermitage in 1861, following Campana's disgrace.
The head does not belong to this statue, which must originally have had a portrait head. In Rome an ideal figure of a divinity might often be adapted slightly (here, for instance the chiton covers the breast) and given a separately made portrait head. Evidence that this was the case here can be seen in the locks of hair falling onto the shoulders. These are also seen in posthumous portraits of Agrippina the Elder
, which enables us to date this statue to the second quarter of the first century AD.
Venus (mythology)
Venus is a Roman goddess principally associated with love, beauty, sex,sexual seduction and fertility, who played a key role in many Roman religious festivals and myths...
in her aspect of Genetrix (mother), as she was honoured by the Julio-Claudian dynasty of Rome, who followed the precedent of Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
in claiming her as their ancestor. Through this historical chance, a Roman designation is applied to an iconological type of Aphrodite
Aphrodite
Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation.Her Roman equivalent is the goddess .Historically, her cult in Greece was imported from, or influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia....
that originated among the Greeks.
On the night before the decisive battle of Pharsalus
Battle of Pharsalus
The Battle of Pharsalus was a decisive battle of Caesar's Civil War. On 9 August 48 BC at Pharsalus in central Greece, Gaius Julius Caesar and his allies formed up opposite the army of the republic under the command of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus...
(48 BC) Julius Caesar vowed to dedicate a temple at Rome to Venus, supposed ancestor of his gens
Gens
In ancient Rome, a gens , plural gentes, referred to a family, consisting of all those individuals who shared the same nomen and claimed descent from a common ancestor. A branch of a gens was called a stirps . The gens was an important social structure at Rome and throughout Italy during the...
. In fulfilment of his vow he erected a temple of Venus Genetrix in the new forum he constructed. Contemporary references identify the cult statue in the temple as by a certain Greek sculptor, Arkesilaos.
Two types, represented in many Roman examples in marble, bronze and terra cotta, contend among scholars for identification as representing the type of this draped Venus Genetrix. Besides the type described further below, is another, in which Venus carries an infant Eros
Eros
Eros , in Greek mythology, was the Greek god of love. His Roman counterpart was Cupid . Some myths make him a primordial god, while in other myths, he is the son of Aphrodite....
on her shoulder.
Original
In 420 - 410 BC410 BC
Year 410 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Mamercinus and Volusus...
the Athenian sculptor Callimachus
Callimachus (sculptor)
Callimachus was an architect and sculptor working in the second half of the 5th century BC in the manner established by Polyclitus. He was credited with work in both Athens and Corinth and was probably from one of the two cities...
created a bronze sculpture of Aphrodite (now lost), which, according to Pliny's Natural History showing her dressed in a light but clinging chiton
Chiton (costume)
A chiton was a form of clothing worn by men and women in Ancient Greece, from the Archaic period to the Hellenistic period ....
or peplos
Peplos
A peplos is a body-lengthGreek garment worn by women before 500 BC. The peplos is a tubular cloth folded inside-out from the top about halfway down, altering what was the top of the tube to the waist and the bottom of the tube to ankle-length. The garment is then gathered about the waist and the...
, which was lowered on the left shoulder to reveal her left breast and hung down in a sheer face and decoratively carved so as not to hide the outlines of the woman's body. Venus was depicted holding the apple won in the Judgement of Paris
Judgement of Paris
thumb |right |460px |[[The Judgment of Paris |The Judgment of Paris]], [[Peter Paul Rubens]], ca 1636...
in her left hand, whilst her right hand moved to cover her head. From the lost bronze original are derived all surviving copies. The composition was frontal, the body's form monumental, and in the surviving Roman replicas its proportions are close to the Polyclitean canon.
Caesar's Venus Genetrix
In 46 BC46 BC
Year 46 BC was the last year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Caesar and Lepidus . The denomination 46 BC for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe...
, the statue of Venus Genetrix made by a certain Arkesilaos was set up by Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
in his new forum
Forum of Caesar
The Forum of Caesar, also known as Forum Iulium or Forum Julium, Forum Caesaris, is a forum built by Julius Caesar near the Forum Romanum in Rome in 46 BC.-Construction:...
, probably in the cella
Cella
A cella or naos , is the inner chamber of a temple in classical architecture, or a shop facing the street in domestic Roman architecture...
of his temple of Venus Genetrix
Temple of Venus Genetrix
The Temple of Venus Genetrix is a ruined temple in the Forum of Caesar, Rome, dedicated to the Roman goddess Venus Genetrix, the goddess of motherhood and domesticity...
. This now-lost statue, or Sabina in the same pose, is represented on the reverse of a denarius above the legend VENERI GENETRICI, with Vibia Sabina
Vibia Sabina
Vibia Sabina was a Roman Empress, wife and second cousin, once removed, to Roman Emperor Hadrian. She was the daughter to Salonina Matidia , and suffect consul Lucius Vibius Sabinus...
on the obverse. The iconological type of the statue, of which there are numerous Roman marble copies and bronze reductions at every level of skill, was identified as Venus Genetrix (Venus Universal Mother) by Ennio Quirino Visconti
Ennio Quirino Visconti
Ennio Quirino Visconti was an Italian antiquarian and art historian, papal Prefect of Antiquities, and the leading expert of his day in the field of ancient Roman sculpture....
in his catalogue of the papal collections, Museo Pio-Clementina, by comparison with this denarius. "From the inscription on the coins, from the similarity between the figure on the coins and the statue in the Louvre, and from the fact that Arkesilaos established the type of Venus Genetrix as patron goddess of Rome, and ancestress of the Julian race, the identification was a very natural one." A Venus Genetrix in the Museo Pio-Clementina has been completed with a Roman portrait head of Sabina, on this basis.
In establishing this new cult of Venus, reportedly in fulfillment of a vow made on the eve of the battle of Pharsalus
Battle of Pharsalus
The Battle of Pharsalus was a decisive battle of Caesar's Civil War. On 9 August 48 BC at Pharsalus in central Greece, Gaius Julius Caesar and his allies formed up opposite the army of the republic under the command of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus...
(48 BC)Caesar was affirming the claim of his own gens
Gens
In ancient Rome, a gens , plural gentes, referred to a family, consisting of all those individuals who shared the same nomen and claimed descent from a common ancestor. A branch of a gens was called a stirps . The gens was an important social structure at Rome and throughout Italy during the...
to descent from the goddess, through Iulus, the son of Aeneas. It was in part to flatter this connection that Virgil
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...
wrote the Aeneid
Aeneid
The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter...
. His public cult expressed the unique standing of Caesar at the end of the Roman Republic
Roman Republic
The Roman Republic was the period of the ancient Roman civilization where the government operated as a republic. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, traditionally dated around 508 BC, and its replacement by a government headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and...
and in that sense of a personal association expressed as public cult was the innovation in Roman religion.
Other copies
A number of the RomanAncient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
examples are in major collections, including the Centrale Montemartinihttp://wings.buffalo.edu/AandL/Maecenas/rome/acea/ac990634.html (discovered in the Gardens of Maecenas
Gardens of Maecenas
The Gardens of Maecenas, built by the Augustan era patron of the arts Gaius Maecenas, were the first gardens in the Hellenistic-Persian garden style in Rome...
), Detroit Institute of Arts
Detroit Institute of Arts
The Detroit Institute of Arts is a renowned art museum in the city of Detroit. In 2003, the DIA ranked as the second largest municipally owned museum in the United States, with an art collection valued at more than one billion dollars...
http://www.dia.org/collections/ancient/greece/74.53.html, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
http://www.stoa.org/gallery/album224/P1010115, the Royal Ontario Museum
Royal Ontario Museum
The Royal Ontario Museum is a museum of world culture and natural history in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. With its main entrance facing Bloor Street in Downtown Toronto, the museum is situated north of Queen's Park and east of Philosopher's Walk in the University of Toronto...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/maiac/162685222/, the J. Paul Getty Museum
J. Paul Getty Museum
The J. Paul Getty Museum, a program of the J. Paul Getty Trust, is an art museum. It has two locations, one at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California, and one at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, California...
http://www.getty.edu/art/collections/objects/o35447.html, the Louvre Museum, and the Hermitage Museum,.
Aphrodite of Fréjus
A 1.64m high Roman statue, dating from the end of the 1st century BC to the start of the 1st century AD, in ParianParos
Paros is an island of Greece in the central Aegean Sea. One of the Cyclades island group, it lies to the west of Naxos, from which it is separated by a channel about wide. It lies approximately south-east of Piraeus. The Municipality of Paros includes numerous uninhabited offshore islets...
marble, was discovered at Fréjus
Fréjus
Fréjus is a commune in the Var department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France.It neighbours Saint-Raphaël, effectively forming one town...
(Forum Julii) in 1650. It is considered as the best Roman copy of the lost Greek work.
The neck, the left hand, the fingers of the right hand, the plinth, and many parts of the drape are modern restorations. It was present in the palace of the Tuileries
Tuileries Palace
The Tuileries Palace was a royal palace in Paris which stood on the right bank of the River Seine until 1871, when it was destroyed in the upheaval during the suppression of the Paris Commune...
in 1678, and was transported from there to the park of Versailles
Palace of Versailles
The Palace of Versailles , or simply Versailles, is a royal château in Versailles in the Île-de-France region of France. In French it is the Château de Versailles....
about 1685. It was seized on the Revolution, and has thus been in the Louvre since 1803, as Inventaire MR 367 (n° usuel Ma 525). The statue was restored in 1999 thanks to the patronage of FIMALAC
FIMALAC
FIMALAC is a French credit rating and risk management corporation.-Biography:FIMALAC was created by Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière in 1991. He serves as the CEO, and holds 100% of the shares of the Fimalac Group, that holds ~80% of Fimalac. It is headquartered in Paris...
.
Hermitage Museum
Another Roman copy of the statue, which is 2.14m high, was in the collection of Giampietro Campana, marchese di CavelliGiampietro Campana
Giampietro Campana , created marchese di Cavelli , was an Italian art collector who assembled one of the nineteenth century's greatest collection of Greek and Roman sculpture and antiquities. The part of his collection of Hellenistic and Roman gold jewellery conserved in the Musée du Louvre...
, Villa Campana, Rome, from which it was acquired for the Hermitage in 1861, following Campana's disgrace.
The head does not belong to this statue, which must originally have had a portrait head. In Rome an ideal figure of a divinity might often be adapted slightly (here, for instance the chiton covers the breast) and given a separately made portrait head. Evidence that this was the case here can be seen in the locks of hair falling onto the shoulders. These are also seen in posthumous portraits of Agrippina the Elder
Agrippina the elder
Vipsania Agrippina or most commonly known as Agrippina Major or Agrippina the Elder was a distinguished and prominent granddaughter of the Emperor Augustus. Agrippina was the wife of the general, statesman Germanicus and a relative to the first Roman Emperors...
, which enables us to date this statue to the second quarter of the first century AD.
General
- Charles Waldstein, 'Pasiteles and Arkesilaos, the Venus Genetrix and the Venus of the Esquiline', The American Journal of Archaeology and of the History of the Fine Arts, Vol. 3, No. 1/2 (Jun., 1887), pp. 1-13
- Cornelia G. Harcum, 'A Statue of the Type Called the Venus Genetrix in the Royal Ontario Museum', American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 31, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1927), pp. 141-152
- List of copies, with images
Aphrodite of Frejus
- TheoiProject: Gallery
- TheoiProject: Gallery
- Venus of Fréjus (Louvre catalogue)
- Venus of Fréjus
- http://cartelen.louvre.fr/cartelen/visite?srv=car_not_frame&idNotice=8399A terracotta reduction, from MyrinaMyrinaMyrina may refer to:*Myrina, Greece, capital of the Greek island of Lemnos*Myrina , ancient city on the coast of Mysia *Myrina , name of several female characters in Greek mythology...
(also at the Louvre)]
Hermitage
- Theoi
- http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/fcgi-bin/db2www/descrPage.mac/descrPage?selLang=English&indexClass=SCULPTURE_EN&Query_Exp=%28WOA_TYPE+%3D%3D+%22Freestanding+Sculpture%22%29+AND+%28WOA_CNTR_ORG+%3D%3D+%22Ancient+Rome%22%29&PID=A-371&numView=1&ID_NUM=88&thumbFile=%2Ftmplobs%2FC228U17FYAS9Y6246.jpg&embViewVer=last&comeFrom=browse&check=false&sorting=WOA_AUTHOR%5EWOA_NAME&thumbId=6&numResults=113&author=Hermitage site]
