Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Bronwen, post: 9595927, member: 5833&quot;]Having spent some time gazing &amp; going back &amp; forth, I believe - hubris is going to get me one of these days - that the Hermitage got it wrong, &amp; it is Venus, not Bellona.&nbsp; Maybe they made the identification by association with Mars, or maybe they, as I, thought the lady had something like a visor on her brow, which I now think is just the more angular treatment Brown gave the background figure compared with the more carefully delineated foreground god.&nbsp; Between the lack of any war related accoutrements &amp; the feminine hair style, particularly that little squiff on top (see my avatar), I have to see this as the Goddess of Love, with her lover &amp; opposite number.</p><p><br /></p><p>Learned quite a while back that museums do not always get it right, let alone even the most prestigious auction houses &amp; the fanciest books.</p><p><br /></p><p>One of my favorite cameos from my own collection is a jugate rendering of Hercules &amp; Omphale.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]465049[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>Found it in the Beazley Archive as an unpublished Tassie.&nbsp; Unpublished, but listed by number in an inventory, which names the subject &amp; adds that it is by Brown.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]465050[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>This let me find it in the collections of the Hermitage, ascribed to William Brown.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]465051[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in