Bathing Venus

Giambologna

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Venus’s sinuous pose and sleek surface invited Renaissance viewers to turn the statuette around in their hands and delight the senses of sight and touch. Giambologna invented the groundbreaking composition, called a figura serpentinata, in which bodies "twist like flames" and can be appreciated equally from every vantage point. This bronze’s immaculate casting and fine tooling reveal the goldsmith training of Susini, who was Giambologna’s principal assistant.

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The holdings include sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also included among these works.

Metropolitan Museum of Art