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# Pauline Bonaparte as Venus in the sculptural portrait by Antonio Canova
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/mezhdunarodnaia-aktsiia-museumweek-otkryvaetsia-dnem-zhenshchin-v-mirovoi-kulture/
- Published: 2019-05-13T10:50:57.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T18:55:33.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Aristocracy, Art, Museums, Mores, People

The international campaign opens with a day of women in world culture. I propose that we recall Pauline Bonaparte, Napoleon's favourite sister, whose famous sculptural portrait is considered one of the masterpieces of Antonio Canova. The aristocrat Camillo Borghese commissioned the work as a wedding gift for his bride. Canova portrayed Pauline as Venus, and the noblewoman posed for him without any clothing; when the sculpture was finished, the whole of the city's high society gathered to gaze upon the unclad Paolina. Borghese-Bonaparte herself prized the statue so highly that she bequeathed that it be displayed in place of an open coffin, so that people would remember her precisely as she appeared here.