Marble sculpture depicting Venus with apple, by Thorvaldsen, 19th century

1770th century, by Bertel Thorvaldsen (Copenhagen, 1844 –XNUMX)
Venus with apple
Marble, cm high. 51

The elegant sculpture depicts Venus, the goddess of love and beauty. Represented standing, in a sinuous pose that highlights the harmonious curves of her body, the goddess walks with a light step and silently observes the fruit held by her with her right hand, while with her left she delicately touches the cloth that was first supposed to cover her nakedness . Her perfectly oval face shows delicate features, highlighted by her collected hairstyle which holds back her cascade of curls. The fruit refers to the golden apple of discord disputed between Minerva, Juno and Venus, then assigned to the latter by Paris, prince of Troy, with the promise of obtaining the love of the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen, the triggering cause of the Trojan War.
The sculpture takes up the famous 1805 marble by Bertel Thorvaldsen (Copenhagen, 17 November 1770 – 24 March 1844) now preserved in the Louvre in Paris. Born in Copenhagen, the young Thorvaldsen began his activity as a carver by helping his father who, seeing artistic talent in his son, sent him at the age of twelve to the school of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. At the Academy he reached very high levels of skill, deserving praise and prizes, even obtaining a royal stipend to complete his studies in Rome, where he arrived on 8 March 1797 after some stops in Malta and Naples. In the city his fame was very great, equal to that of Canova (Possagno, 1 November 1757 - Venice, 13 October 1822), his artistic rival, who also moved to Rome in 1781 after his apprenticeship in Venice. The two neoclassical sculptors actually challenged each other on the same motifs and subjects, each giving their own original interpretation. These were the figures of ancient mythology who, like the Graces, Cupid and Psyche, Venus, Hebe, represented in the Western collective imagination the embodiment of the great universal themes. Compared to Canova, Thorvaldsen embodied the style of Greek art to a greater extent; poses and expressions of his figures are much more rigid and formal than those of Canova, always in search of great formal purity. In this regard, compare his Venus with apple with Canova's Italic Venus created between 1804-1812 and today preserved in the Palatine Gallery of Palazzo Pitti in Florence. The choice to depict the goddess of beauty during an intimate moment is common, but if in Canova the naturalness of the gesture of the goddess prevails, who modestly tries to hide her nakedness behind a veil, in Thorvaldalsen it is the grace and harmony of plasticity of the body that captures the spectator's gaze.

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