Paolina Borghese Bonaparte as Venus Victrix

Canova Antonio

(Possagno 1757 - Venice 1822)

Portrayed by Antonio Canova in the guise Venus victorious in the Judgement of Paris, Pauline Borghese Bonaparte (1780-1825) is depicted bare-breasted as she reclines on two cushions and a soft mattress, with her right hand touching her head and her left holding the apple. According to the well-known episode in Greek mythology, Paris granted Venus the golden apple to signify the primacy of her beauty over the virtues of Juno and Minerva. Executed in Rome between 1804 and 1810, the sculpture caused quite a stir among contemporaries: the work combines ancient grace and artifice with a naturalistic rendering – almost pictorial – of the soft flesh and delicate veils that cover Pauline’s lower body, creating an extremely seductive image.

The ‘Agrippina-style’ chaise lounge is decorated with a drape with fringes, beads, plant volutes and anthropomorphic figures on the sides and the backrest. The drape further serves to conceal the mechanism which allows the sculpture to rotate 360°.

The preparatory sketches of the work are held at the Museo Civico in Bassano, while the plaster model is conserved at the Gipsoteca in Possagno.

Object details

Commentary

The iconic masterpiece of the Galleria, the portrait sculpture of Pauline Bonaparte as Venus Victrix was commissioned by Prince Camillo Borghese to Antonio Canova in 1804; the sum of 6,000 scudi was paid to the sculptor for the work on 15 May 1808 (Faldi 1954, p. 47; Pupillo 2019, pp. 248, 335 no. 131).

Camillo Borghese married Pauline Bonaparte, Napoleon’s beautiful, vivacious sister, in Paris in 1803. The First Consul, who would become Emperor a year later, was pleased to join his family to one of the Roman aristocracy. Pauline was 23 and was already the widow of General Leclerc. She married Camillo without even waiting for the completion of her one-year mourning; together they moved to Palazzo Borghese in Rome, where Pauline was able to devote herself to the life of pleasure that she so much cherished.

Although the marriage was not particularly happy, Camillo commissioned the most famous artist of the day to portray his beautiful wife. Rumours abounded regarding her nudity and the possibility that she may have posed naked for the artist (she herself mischievously said that ‘one may let every veil fall in front of Canova’). In any case, the portrait is an ideal one, forming part of the ‘graceful’ genre of Canova’s oeuvre. Pauline is depicted as Venus, winner of the Judgement of Paris over her rivals Juno and Minerva, as indicated by the apple in her hand: she is the most beautiful among the goddesses.

In this work Canova gave maximum expression to his figurative culture, creating an icon of his unique Neoclassical style. The princess’s pose on the elegant ‘Agrippina-style’ imperial chaise lounge – much in vogue in that era – alludes to the classical repertoire, in particular to reclining Etruscan and Roman figures sculpted on sarcophagi. The motif also formed part of the 16th-century culture of Veneto, as seen in the Venuses by Titian, with whom Canova entered into a sort of ideal competition within the Villa (Mazzocca 2004, p. 21).

Several preparatory drawings for the sculpture are held at the Museo Civico of Bassano, while the original plaster, which stills shows the markings used as reference points for translating the work into marble, is conserved at the Gipsoteca in Possagno. We know that Canova entrusted the sculpting of the marble to his assistants, leaving to himself the ‘final coat’ – the patient work of polishing, performed with finer and finer abrasives, that produced the ‘real flesh’ effect, which was especially visible in candlelight. For the Pauline, Canova applied acqua di rota in the finishing process: this was the water used in milling to prevent rotating iron grinding wheels from overheating. The result was to create a rose-coloured sparkling effect on the surfaces.

The rendering of the mattress is particularly striking: it seems to gently give way under the weight of the goddess. This realistic effect had an eminent precedent, namely the mattress realised by Bernini for the Sleeping Hermaphrodite, which once belonged to Scipione Borghese but was among the many works that the family sold to Napoleon at precisely the time that Canova was sculpting the Pauline (Mazzocca 2004, p. 21). Canova indeed opposed the sale of the Borghese marbles; here he returned a Neoclassical exemplar to the family.

The chaise lounge conceals an ingenious mechanism that rotates on a central access. Manufactured in Turin, the device allows the sculpture to turn 360° such that it can be viewed from all angles. The mechanism was restored and its function regained in 1997 (Herrmann Fiore, 2002, figs. 13-14). In 1953, two leonine feet were added to the sofa (Faldi 1954, p. 46).

In 1809, the sculpture was transferred to Palazzo Chiablese in Turin (Faldi 1954, p. 47), where Camillo lived in his capacity as governor general of the Transalpine departments. It was sent back to Rome in 1814 by sea from the port of Genoa and transferred to Palazzo Borghese in Campo Marzio, where it was displayed at night as well, illuminated by torches (Quatremère de Quincy 1834, p. 147ff.). In 1838 it was moved to the Paris and Helen Room of Villa Pinciana and placed in a Neoclassical setting in the Paris and Helen Room (Minozzi 2007, pp. 71-89). It took up its current position in 1889 to accompany the Stories of Venus and Aeneas painted on the vault by Domenico de Angelis.

Sonja Felici