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A Marble Bust of Venus By Benjamin Edward Spence
A Marble Bust of Venus By Benjamin Edward Spence
Dimensions: H: 21 in / 53.5 cm | W: 15.5 in / 39 cm
A Marble Bust of Venus
By Benjamin Edward Spence (1823-1866)
Carved from statuary marble, the female bust representing Venus, the goddess of Love & Beauty, in the nude, wearing a diadem adorned with carved dolphins and a shell symbolising her birth from the sea as told in Hesiod's Theogony. Signed 'B. Spence fecit Romæ 1855.'
Anglo-Italian, dated 1855
This bust was likely made alongside the large sculptural group of Venus & Cupid which the artist exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1856, today in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The artist has portrayed the goddess in the same pose wearing an identical diadem. An untraced bust of Venus was sold by Christie's in 1870 from Spence's own collection, possibly the current example.
Benjamin Edward Spence (1823-1866)
Benjamin Edward Spence was a 19th-century English sculptor known for his elegant and often sentimental marble figures in the Neoclassical style. Born in Liverpool in 1822, he was the son of sculptor William Spence.
Spence moved to Rome in 1846, where he became a pupil in the studio of Richard James Wyatt and also received guidance from the prominent sculptor John Gibson. He spent most of his professional life in Rome, although he visited England annually where he exhibited at the Royal Academy for several years.
His work, primarily executed in white marble, includes portrait busts, mythological figures, and statues inspired by literary themes. He is perhaps best known for his statue "Highland Mary" (after the Robert Burns poem), which was exhibited internationally and a version of which was commissioned for Queen Victoria. Upon his death in 1866, the Art Journal commented his works " were characterised by a great purity of feeling."
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