The Birth of Venus (Cabanel)
Painting by Alexandre Cabanel / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Birth of Venus (French: Naissance de Venus) is a painting by the French artist Alexandre Cabanel. It was painted in 1863, and is now in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. A second and smaller version (85 x 135.9 cm) from ca. 1864 is in Dahesh Museum of Art.[1] A third (106 x 182.6 cm)[2] version dates from 1875; it is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
The Birth of Venus | |
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Artist | Alexandre Cabanel |
Year | 1863 |
Medium | Oil on canvas |
Dimensions | 150 cm × 250 cm (59 in × 98 in) |
Location | Musée d'Orsay, Paris |
Shown to great success at the Paris Salon of 1863, The Birth of Venus was immediately purchased by Napoleon III for his own personal collection.[3] That same year Cabanel was made a professor of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.
Cabanel's combination of sensual and classical imagery appealed to the higher levels of society.[3] Art historian and curator Robert Rosenblum wrote of Cabanel's The Birth of Venus that "This Venus hovers somewhere between an ancient deity and a modern dream"; he described "the ambiguity of her eyes, that seem to be closed but that a close look reveals that she is awake ... A nude who could be asleep or awake is specially formidable for a male viewer."[4]