Traces of it had been lost for 70 years, the Aphrodite Hamilton goes up for auction in London

Over seventy years after it appeared for the last time in a New York auction in 1949, “L’Aphrodite Hamilton”, one of the most important Roman sculptures in private hands, believed to have been lost, is about to reappear from the auction house. Sotheby’s. Dating from the 1st or 2nd century AD, the Roman marble figure of the “Capitoline Aphrodite” will go on sale on 7 December with an estimate of 2,000,000-3,000,000 pounds. Marble appears to be among the most beautiful ‘whole’ ancient sculptures in Scotland, where it spent 144 years between 1776 and 1919, as one of the main attractions of Hamilton Palace, the country estate of the Dukes of Hamilton, one of the Scotland’s most famous mansions and one of Britain’s grandest houses at the time (now lost). The Aphrodite entered the Hamilton Palace collection in 1776, when it was purchased in Rome by Douglas Hamilton, 8th Duke of Hamilton and 5th Duke of Brandon (1756-1799) by the Scottish neoclassical painter and art dealer Gavin Hamilton (1723 -1798, without any relationship with the duke). This statue was registered as present in the “Grand Staircase” of Hamilton Palace in the years between 1850 and 1870 and is one of the four ancient marbles that adorned the halls of the palace. Of the other three, one is in an American museum, one was auctioned in the 1970s in New York, and the last one still remains with an unknown location.The figure of Aphrodite has fascinated artists for millennia in the history of art and those sculpted by the sculptors of ancient Greece and Rome represent the pinnacle of the classical ideal. However, the enthusiastic British collectors who toured Italy in the 18th century hardly managed to own one. Only two other statues of equal importance were brought to Great Britain: the Barberini Venus (sold at auction in London as “Venus Jenkins” in 2002) and the “Venus Townley”, now in the British Museum in London. “The Aphrodite Hamilton” boasts an extraordinary size, 187 cm high, and is the only ‘intact’ statue of the goddess offered for auction in the last 20 years. True triumph of Roman art, this sculpture is a fitting tribute to Aphrodite herself, the ancient goddess of love and incarnation of female beauty.The sculpture derives from the Praxitelean model of the Aphrodite cnidia (4th century BC) now lost, and depicts the goddess standing with her weight on her left leg, her head turned to the left, her wavy hair parted and tied up, and her ears pierced for earrings. Florent Heintz, Sotheby’s antiquities specialist, said: “The Duke of Hamilton fell in love with Aphrodite the instant he saw her for the first time, nearly 250 years ago. I too fell under her spell the moment I laid eyes on her, struck as I was from the subtle blend of earthly beauty and divine majesty. I hope the audience will share the same experience “. (by Paolo Martini)