PRADIER, James
(b. 1790, Genève, d. 1852, Rueil)

A Woman Undressing

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Bronze, height 29 cm
Private collection

This bronze statuette combines a façade of the antique with contemporary titillation. In it, the viewer encounters the famous Callipygian Venus of antiquity, sensually enhanced to show a Parisian courtesan undressing. (The Callipygian Venus, all literally meaning "Venus of the beautiful buttocks", is an ancient Roman marble statue, thought to be a copy of an older Greek original.)




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