This is a replica piece. Canova had been asked to carve a copy of the "Venus de Medici" after its departure from Florence for Paris as part of Napoleon's loot. He was reluctant to execute the work and it was never finished, instead "(he) produced a completely original and unmistakably modern work." (H.W.Janson, "Nineteenth Century Sculpture" pub.Thames & Hudson, 1985, p54), "Canova's Venus imitates its classical predecessors only in the cool smooth treatment of the marble; the proportions, the pose, even the coiffure are his own invention."