Art

This marble was once displayed alongside a companion sculpture of a reclining Venus (now lost) in the Sagredo family’s Venetian palace. Eighteenth-century inventories identify the subject as the mythological huntsman Adonis, beloved of the goddess Venus. Although he is often depicted with fatal wounds after being killed by a boar, this reclining figure appears to be in a peaceful slumber, instead seemingly recalling the related myth of the sleeping shepherd Endymion, whose youthful beauty seduced Diana. The body’s languid pose and highly polished flesh form a sensuous display of undulating marble whose fluid curves and tactile surfaces would have complemented the palace’s interior.