Princess Pauline Borghese
Pauline Bonaparte (1780-1825) was the sister of Napolean. She married into the Italian nobility, becoming the first sovereign Duchess of Guastalla in Italy, an imperial French Princess and the Princess consort of Sulmona and Rossano.
The neo-Classical Pauline Bonaparte as Venus Victrix sculpture was commissioned by Pauline’s second husband Camillo Borghese and executed in Rome from 1805 to 1808, after her marriage into the Borghese family. Nude portraits were unusual, with subjects of high rank usually having strategically placed drapery. It is a matter of debate as to whether she actually posed naked for the sculpture, since only the head is a realistic (if slightly idealised) portrait, whilst the nude torso is a neo-classically idealised female form. When asked how she could pose for the sculptor wearing so little, she reputedly replied that there was a stove in the studio that kept her warm, though this may be a quip deliberately designed by her to stir up scandal.
She holds an apple in her hand evoking Aphrodite’s victory in the Judgement of Paris.
