Venus

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The sculptor’s simplified volumetric approach is remarkable even among German bronzes, in which simplicity and geometry were prized qualities. Exact parallels for the bejeweled goddess have not been found, but the planar treatment of the forms, the reinforced engraving of details such as nipples and navel, the gouging of facial features, and the grooved waves of hair are encountered in various works that originated in Innsbruck, as well as in Nuremberg and Augsburg. The necklace alone does not establish the identity of the goddess. She formerly held an object in her raised right hand and possible steadied something with her lowered left hand, whose thumb has broken. It is not out of the question that the statuette—which was attached to another object by means of the hole in the middle of the base—formed part of a fountain.

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