Towneley from A to Z
Towneley from A to Z
The marble sculpture on display in the window of the Red Regency Room is an early copy of Venere Italica (the Italian Venus). The Venere Italica was created by Antonio Canova (1757-1822) in 1814 and put on display in the Ufizi Gallery in Florence to replace the famous Medici Venus that Napoleon Bonaparte had removed to Paris.
The copy at Towneley has been on loan from the Starkie family since 1933. It formerly stood in the Central Staircase, Huntroyde. In the 19th century, it was recorded as purchased in Florence around 1815. (See Whittaker's 'History of Whalley', 1876 and Hugh Honour's "Canova's Statues of Venus" The Burlington Magazine, October 1972 p.658-670.