Elegant 19th century Grand Tour cabinet bronze of the Crouching Venus, the goddess of love and beauty surprised whilst bathing. Depicted with crossed arms to conceal her nudity as she appears on land immediately after her birth. Celebrated in antiquity the Roman author Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, describes a statue of Venus washing herself, made by Doidalses and placed in one of the temples of the Portico d�Ottavia in Rome. A model for artists of the Renaissance, this iconographic image has been revisited many times with small variations throughout history, similar versions can be seen in the Louvre, Paris; the Museo Nazionale delle Terme, Rome; the Uffizi, Florence; the Vatican Museums, and the Royal Collection. This version most closely resembles the marble in the Vatican Museums, which was excavated at Salone in the eighteenth century (and engraved soon after by Francesco Piranesi). Presented on a stepped Marmo Rosso Levanto and Belgian Black marble base typical of sou...