c. 1486-1494
Venus
Adriano de Giovanni de’ Maestri, known as Adriano FiorentinoItalian (active Florence), c. 1450-1460, died before June 1499
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This figure is a great rarity both as an early Renaissance bronze of a female nude and as a work signed by its maker. In Italy in the second half of the 1400s, renewed interest in ancient Greece and Rome as well as ongoing discoveries of antique sculpture spurred a demand for small bronzes. While the sculptor of this Venus was inspired by ancient marble and bronze sculpture, the goddess and the shell on which she stands reflect the contemporary influence of Sandro Botticelli’s painting The Birth of Venus (c. 1484) at the Uffizi in Florence. A rare feature of this work that underlines the artist’s pride in his abilities is the appearance of his name in Latinized form on the underside of the base: HADRIANVS / ME. F. (Adriano made me). Famous for his skill in bronze, Adriano worked throughout Italy and in Germany at the court of Saxony.
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