03 — ARTWORK
Venus
- MEDIUM
- Marble
- TYPE
- Mythological
PALETTE
HOVER OR TAP A SWATCH FOR NAME, SHARE AND HEX. SAMPLED FROM THE IMAGE — INDICATIVE, NOT A PIGMENT ANALYSIS.
THIS REPRODUCTION
- FILE
- 1000 × 1417 px · JPEG
COMMENTARY
UNDERLINED TERMS ARE DEFINED IN THE GLOSSARY.
Giambologna executed several figures of Venus, mostly for fountains. In these he achieves the Mannerist ideal in elongation and in conscious courtly elegance. This extraordinary marbleloosely applied to any hard limestone that can be sawn into thin slabs and will take a good polish so that it is suitable for decorative work; more strictly, it refers to metamorphosed limestones whose structure has been recrystallized by heat or pressure. Marbles are widely disseminated and occur in a great variety of colours and patterns, but certain types have been particularly prized by sculptors. The most famous of Greek white marbles in the ancient world was the close-grained Pentelic, which was quarried at Mount Pentelicon in Attica. The Elgin Marbles are carved in Pentelic. Widely used also were the somewhat coarser-grained translucent white marbles from the Aegean islands of Paros and Naxos. Parian marble was used for the celebrated Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. The pure white Carrara marble, quarried at Massa, Carrara, and Pietra Santa in Tuscany from the 3rd century BC, is the most famous of all sculptors' stones. It was used for the Apollo Belvedere, and was much favoured in the Renaissance, particularly by Michelangelo, who often visited the quarries to select material for his work. Neoclassical sculptors also favoured Carrara marble because of its ability to take a smooth, sleek surface, but it can look rather 'dead' compared with some of the finest Greek marbles. statue of a bathing Venus, one of Giambologna's masterpieces, occupies the centre of the third and last grotto in the Buontalenti Grotto. The finely polished surface of her elongated body contrasts effectively with the roughly hewn stones of the pedestal and the overall rustic environment.
OTHER WORKS BY GIAMBOLOGNA
CITE THIS RECORD — BIBTEX
@online{wga-ra865ccd35e28c2,
author = {Krén, Emil and Marx, Daniel},
title = {Venus by GIAMBOLOGNA},
organization = {{Web Gallery of Art}},
date = {2026-09-13},
url = {https://beta.wga.hu/artists/giambologna-rd5b510539e17a3/venus-ra865ccd35e28c2},
urldate = {2026-09-13},
langid = {english}
}ACCESSED 2026-09-13. REPLACE THE AUTHOR FIELD WITH THE COMMENTARY AUTHOR WHERE ONE IS NAMED.