Lorenzo Bartolini was an Italian marble sculptor who lived from 1777-1850. He is known for his neoclassicist, yet naturalistic style, and after the death of Antonio Canova in 1822, he became the leading Italian sculptor. He created a variety of works, including full-body portrait statues and commissioned monuments, but he was especially well-known for his numerous portrait busts. He had a number of patrons, the most influential of whom being Napoleon, who commissioned from him a large bust of himself.
This sculpture, Reclining Venus, was inspired by Titian’s Venus of Urbino (1534). It may have been a commission by Lord Robert Castlereagh, the Marquis of Londonderry. In 1821, Bartolini received permission of the Uffizi Gallery to create this copy of Titian’s painting, and in 1822 it was finished. The sculpture is 174 cm tall (approximately 5 feet) and made out of marble. It currently resides at the Lady Lever Art Gallery in Bebington, England.
Thanks, Grace. The most amazing detail in the sculpture, for me, is the calf resting over the shin. It’s exquisite that a substance as hard as marble can be carved in such a way as to suggest the suppleness of flesh and muscle.