Italian neoclassical school of the mid 19th century Venus disarming Love White marble group Dim: 90 x 60 x 30 cm on a painted wooden base H. 76 cm (H. total: 168 cm) Related works : -Bertel Thorvaldsen, Venus Disarming Love, ink drawing, 6.8 x 6.8 cm, Staedel Museum, inv. 257 Z ; -Bertel Thorvaldsen, Venus consoling Love stung by a bee, marble bas-relief, dim. 48 x 52 cm, Milan, Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, inv. 1581. Related literature: -Elena di Majo, Bjarne Jornaes, Bertel Thorvaldsen, scultore danese a Roma, cat. exhibition, Rome, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna,31 October 1989-28 January 1990, Rome, 1989, model listed under no. 12 p.146 The artist of this imposing marble group was inspired by a composition by Berthel Thorvaldsen on the theme of Love Stung by a Bee. The Danish artist, a leader of the neoclassical movement, illustrated an extract from Ode XL of Theocritus' Idylls and Anacreontic Odes in his marble bas-relief housed in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan: "Eros did not see a bee hidden in roses and was stung by it. He was stung on the hand and began to weep. And running and flying to the white Kythere, he said: - Alas! I am dead, I am dead, my mother! I am going to die! Behold, a little winged snake has wounded me, one of those that the ploughmen call bees. She said to him: "If a bee has done you so much harm, how much, Eros, do you think those you wound suffer? Our artist seems to have created a variation on this theme, depicting Venus trampling underfoot the bow of the little god of Love to represent the goddess disarming Love.