Object Description
379 TOILET OF VENUS, ca. 1587
A bust of Venus, her head turned slightly to the left, her breasts exposed and a pearl earring in her left ear. Behind, a servant holds a braid by a cloth out to the right; a second servant on the left, partly cut off by the border, combs her hair. At the right. Amor embraces the goddess and raises a mirror with his left hand. Above, the artist's monogram, AN AB (superimposed).
Lead, oval, 93 x 72 mm.
An example at the National Museum in Budapest is dated 1587. A detail in gilt gypsum depicting Venus and Amor can be found on a cabinet of Rudolf the Second at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (Habich, G., Schaumuenzen 2, 2, p. 485, fig. 503a) ; a lead cast in Nuremberg, Germanisches Museum (Fiala, E., Antonio Abondio, Prague 1909, no. 87, pl. 9, 4). Habich (Ibid., p. 507) mentions a variation: an oval model (in stone? -ex coll. Felix: Felix Collection, Catalogue Heberle, Cologne 1896, no. 910) as an imitation dating from the seventeenth century. A drawing by Paul Zeggin, done in 1618, is in Munich at the Graphisches Sammlung (Nagler, G. K., Kunstlerlexikon 22, 1852, p. 280; same author. Die Monogrammisten, Munich 1858, 4, no. 3416).
Other specimens: (lead) Basel, Historisches Museum; Budapest, National Museum; Hamburg, Museum fuer Kunst und Gewerbe; London, Victoria and Albert Museum; Munich, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum; Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum; Prague, Kunstgewerbemuseum; Stuttgart, Wuerttembergisches Landesmuseum; Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum; (bronze) Basel, Historisches Museum.
Bibl.: Molinier, no. 355; Fiala, E., Antonio Abondio, Prague 1909, p. 47, no. 86, pl. 9, 3; Planiscig, no. 459; MacLagan, p. 45, no. 5412-1859, pl. 12; Weber, no. 650. Auction catalogs: Frank Collection, Cubasch, Vienna, 18 January 1904, no. 956; Riechmann & Co., Halle/S., Catalog 6, 12 March 1913, no. 434, pl. 16; Cahn, Frankfurt/M., Catalogue 37, 7-9 March 1918, no. 69; Riechmann & Co., Halle/S., Catalog 17, 22-23 February 1921, no. 789, pl. 10; Collection Lanna II, Lepke, Berlin, 21-23 March 1911, no. 304, pl. 25.