Canova's Pauline Bonaparte as Venus Victrix in the Galleria Borghese

Pauline Bonaparte as Venus: Canova’s Most Daring Portrait at the Galleria Borghese

Napoleon’s sister was carved bare-breasted as Venus, holding the apple of victory, rather than as the chaste Diana first planned. Two centuries later she still reclines in her own room at the Galleria Borghese.

Visit

Timed two-hour entry to the Galleria Borghese. Galleria Borghese tickets

Location

Galleria Borghese, Piazzale Scipione Borghese 5, Rome.

Visit duration

Visits run in timed slots of about two hours. Plan your visit

Where

Room 1, the Sala della Paolina, in the Galleria Borghese.

Who Was Pauline Bonaparte?

Pauline Bonaparte was Napoleon’s younger sister and, through her second marriage, Princess Borghese. Antonio Canova carved her as Venus Victrix, Venus Victorious, a semi-nude portrait that was scandalous for a woman of her rank. The quips she is said to have made about posing turned the scandal into her own story. The statue is the centrepiece of the first room of the Galleria Borghese.

Pauline Bonaparte in Brief

She was born in Ajaccio, Corsica, on 20 October 1780.

She received no formal education.

Her first husband, General Charles Leclerc, died in 1802.

She was the only Bonaparte sibling to visit Napoleon in exile on Elba.

Canova carved the statue from 1804 to 1808 for her husband, Prince Camillo Borghese.

A hidden mechanism in the base lets the statue turn a full circle.

Pauline Bonaparte, Napoleon’s Sister

Pauline Bonaparte, Princess Borghese, by Robert Lefevre

Pauline was the sixth child of Letizia Ramolino and Carlo Buonaparte. After her father’s death in 1785 the family fell into poverty, and in 1793 they fled Corsica for mainland France.

She was in love with another man, but Napoleon married her to General Leclerc in 1797. Leclerc died of fever in Saint-Domingue, and she brought his remains back to France in 1803.

She then married Prince Camillo Borghese, descendant of the cardinal whose collection fills the gallery, and became Princess Borghese.

Venus Victrix: Venus, Not Diana

Detail of Canova’s Venus Victrix, Pauline Bonaparte — Photo: Fabrizio Garrisi, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Canova revived the Roman custom of portraying real people as gods. He reportedly first proposed to show her clothed as Diana, the virgin huntress, and she laughed that nobody would believe it.

Instead she reclines as Venus, holding the apple she won in the Judgement of Paris. Only the head is a close portrait; the body follows the classical ideal.

Asked how she could pose in so little, she is said to have answered that there was a stove in the studio. The line may be legend, but it has followed the statue ever since.

A Statue Made for Candlelight

The Casino Borghese, home of the Galleria Borghese

The statue was designed to be seen up close and in motion. A mechanism in the draped wooden base, restored in 1997, turns it so viewers can take in every angle.

Canova gave the marble a waxed finish meant to glow by candle or torchlight. The statue travelled to Turin and Genoa before coming back to Rome.

It has stood in its current room since 1889, under a ceiling painted with the Judgement of Paris that echoes the apple in her hand.

Women in the Marble of the Galleria Borghese

The Sala della Paolina

The first room of the museum is named after her, and she is its centrepiece.

Detail of Bernini’s Rape of Proserpina — Photo: Alvesgaspar, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Bernini’s Proserpina

Pluto’s fingers press into her thigh as she fights him off. She is resisting, not posing.

Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne — Photo: Architas, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Bernini’s Daphne

Chased by Apollo, she escapes by turning into a laurel tree, caught mid-change.

Seeing Pauline at the Galleria Borghese

Pauline is in the very first room, so she is where your visit begins. Walk all the way around her before you move on, then look up at the Judgement of Paris on the ceiling. Bernini’s Proserpina and Daphne are in the rooms that follow.