Tortoise at the feet of Venus Verticordia
John Gibson, RA 1790-l866
c.1833-7; exhibited at the Royal Academy, 1838
White marble
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
Photograph and text by Jacqueline Banerjee 2010
The Fitzwilliam Museum's own catalogue site suggests that the tortoise at Venus's feet relates to the goddess's emergence from the sea. With the same idea in mind, a contributor to Punch expressed some good-humoured puzzlement over the choice of this land-reptile rather than a turtle — or indeed a pair of turtle doves — when the Tinted Venus came to be shown ("An Emblem of Domestic Bliss," 169). But it was not uncommon for Venus to be depicted with a tortoise. The little creature had several connotations for women, from highly sexual to quite puritanical. In view of the ideal nature of the statue, perhaps the best explanation for its inclusion here, apart from its appearance in earlier depictions of Venus, is the ancient belief that the tortoise shows "the fancy of women" to be "firme & fixed, as a stedfaste Tortuse" (qtd. in Williams 1406).
Other Views and Related Material
- Venus Verticordia (whole work)
- Detail of the statue
- Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Venus Verticordia
- "The New Sculpture and the Old Sculpture in Victorian Britain" (also by Read)
- "Venus Verticordia, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1864-8" (image and essay from the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery, Bournemouth: off-site)
References
"An Emblem of Domestic Bliss." Punch, 26 April 1862.
Museum information plaque.
"John Gibson, 1790-1866: Venus Verticordia" (a useful essay on the Fitzwilliam Museum site). Viewed 24 January 2010.
Williams, Gordon. Dictionary of Sexual Language and Imagery in Shakespearean and Stuart Literature. Vol. 2. London: Athlone Press, 1994.
Last modified 24 January 2010