 |
| Capitoline Venus Roman marble copy of a late Hellenistic work Capitoline Museum |
 |
| James Anderson Capitoline Venus ca. 1845-55 albumen silver print Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
 |
| Anonymous sculptor Capitoline Venus mid-19th century copy - bronze statuette Royal Collection, Great Britain |
The Capitoline Venus was discovered late in the 17th century, after the Renaissance canon of antique sculpture had already been formed. But the new statue – clearly authentic – was also unusually well preserved. "The attractive theory that this statue was the Venus which 'Magister Gregorius' saw on the Quirinal in the Middle Ages but of which there are no later records depends on the supposition that it was walled up in response to ecclesiastical hostility, but Bartoli states that it was found in antique interiors together with other sculpture. Pope Benedict XIV bought the statue from the Stazi family in 1752 and presented it to the Capitoline Museum." So it became the Capitoline Venus. And from that position was immediately placed in competition with a rival Venus in Florence, "at a time when sensitivity about restoration was beginning to impair the reputation of the Venus de' Medici." Casts and copies of the new Venus proliferated in the late 18th and early 19th century – Flaxman singled out the cast of the Capitoline Venus at the Royal Academy, advising his students there to heed it. The statue's reputation suffered less than many in the general train-wreck of 19th-century scientific criticism. "The special room in which the statue is displayed ensures that it continues to impress, and it is less disparaged than is the Venus de' Medici."
Silenus with the Infant Bacchus (below) also known as the Borghese Faun was among the Borghese marbles sold to Napoleon in 1807. It had been excavated along with the Borghese Vase toward the middle of the 16th century. Among other names in use for this figure were Acrasius nursing Bacchus, Faun with the Infant Bacchus, and Saturn. When the work was supposed to represent Saturn, it was also supposed that Saturn was about to devour the child. Much more popular was the interpretation of Silenus tenderly caring for young Bacchus.
 |
| Silenus with the Infant Bacchus Roman marble copy of an earlier Greek bronze Louvre |
 |
| Richard Collin after Joachim von Sandrart Silenus with the Infant Bacchus 1677 engraving Rijksmuseum |
 |
| Domenico de Rossi Borghese Silenus with the Infant Bacchus ca. 1704 engraving Philadelphia Museum of Art |
Cardinal Ferdinando de Medici felt such fondness for this marble that he obtained special permission to have a mold made from it in the 1570s. The cast resulted in "a full-size bronze copy of superb quality, with the tree trunk embellished by a far more complex vine than in the original" – as can be discerned in the 17th-century etching below. This shows the garden front of the Villa Medici in Rome, decorated with antique sculpture. Flanking the central Mercury fountain was a pair of standing statues on pedestals. That on the right was the original marble Venus de' Medici, before its removal to Florence. The one to the left, paired with this acknowledged masterpiece, was Ferdinando de Medici's bronze copy of Silenus with the Infant Bacchus.
 |
| Giovanni Francesco Venturini Garden Front with Antique Sculpture, Villa Medici, Rome ca. 1691 etching Metropolitan Museum of Art |
"The Silenus was one of the most consistently admired antique statues in Rome ... it was classed with the Venus de' Medici, the Farnese Hercules and the Antinous, and it was frequently reproduced." The long after-glow of its fame is reflected in the bronze statuette below, produced in the middle of the nineteenth century and given as a Christmas gift by Prince Albert to Queen Victoria in 1858.
 |
| Ferdinand Barbedienne Borghese Silenus with the Infant Bacchus ca. 1858 copy - bronze statuette Royal Collection, Great Britain |
There were at least two competing full-size antique marble statues of Silenus on the Roman scene when the Borghese version enjoyed such fame. The one immediately below could be seen at Palazzo Farnese. The next one down, at Museo Garimberti.
 |
| Anonymous Italian artist Farnese Silenus with the Infant Bacchus 1540s engraving British Museum |
 |
| Anonymous Italian artist Silenus as an Old Man 1540s engraving British Museum |
The ancient Roman marble statue of The Wild Boar (below) was known in Rome by the middle of the 16th century. Before long it had been acquired by the Medici and moved to Florence, where it has been displayed a the Uffizi since 1591.
 |
| Giovanni Domenico Campiglia The Wild Boar ca. 1731 etching, engraving Philadelphia Museum of Art |
 |
| Friedrich Riedel Gottlieb The Wild Boar ca. 1750-80 etching Philadelphia Museum of Art |
 |
| Fabergé The Wild Boar ca. 1908 miniature statuette in chalcedony Royal Collection, Great Britain |
The gigantic statue below (photographed at Palazzo Spada in Rome) has listened to many debates about its identity, but has heard itself most frequently called Pompey.
 |
| Pompey Colossal Roman marble statue, 2nd century AD Palazzo Spada, Rome |
 |
| Domenico de Rossi Pompey ca. 1704 engraving Philadelphia Museum of Art |
"The first engraving of the figure in 1584 described it as Trajan, but thereafter it was called Julius Caesar. In 1658 the third edition of a standard guidebook to Rome referred to it as Pompey (for the first time in print) and henceforward this denomination remained at the center of all discussion of the statue. ... It was widely believed to be not just the only large-scale surviving representation of Pompey but also the 'very Statue at the foot of which Julius Caesar fell'. This last theory, which soon hardened into dogma, seems not to have originated before the second decade of the eighteenth century. ... Gibbon was not wholly convinced and thought the figure more likely to be that of an emperor."
Early in the 19th century, new methods of scrutiny caught up with this statue as with so many others, and showed conclusively that the head did not match the body. Scholars now believe the head was entirely modern, contributed by the 16th-century restorers.
"That the controversy damaged the statue's reputation is obvious: nonetheless, the most characteristic response to its repercussions probably remains that of Charles Greville writing on 4 April 1830. After freely acknowledging that 'people doubt this statue' and adding further doubts of his own, he continues, without the slightest awareness of any contradiction: 'It is impossible for the coldest imagination to look at this statue without interest, for it calls up a host of recollections and associations, standing before you unchanged from the hour when Caesar folded his robe around him and 'consented to death' at its base. Those who cannot feel this had better not come to Rome.'"
Quoted passages are from Taste and the Antique by Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny (Yale University Press, 1981)