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SCULPTURE, coo0000000000000 ANTIQUE, 0000000000 CAPITOL MUSEUM.

VENUS OF THE CAPITOL.

The attitude of this Venus being nearly the same as that of the statue previously given, under the name of the Venus de Medicis, it must be thought that the statuary also took for pattern the famous Venus of Gnidus, wherein Praxiteles had imitated the beautiful forms of the courtezan Phryne. The name of the beauty who served as a model to the author of the Venus of the Capitol is not known; but it is impossible not to discern, in this work, the imitation of a living model, chosen amongst what nature could present of most perfect.

If the artist has not given to his figure the noble character which astonishes in the form of the Venus de Medicis, he has, perhaps, surpassed all ancient and modern statuaries by the unaffected imitation of the flesh : an imitation rendered the more forcible by the mild and transparent tone of the Paros marble, by the entireness of all the parts of the statue, and the high preservation of its surface.

So many qualities combined have caused the preference to be given to this statue, by those, whose imagination do not bear towards a supernatural beauty.

This statue, in Paros marble, is probably one of the two spoken of by Pliny. It was in the mansion of the Stazzi, under the pontificate of Benedictus XIV: it was then placed in the Museum of the Capitol, and ceded to France b the treaty of Tolentino. It returned to Rome in 1815.

Height, 5 feet 7 inches.

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