The Bather

This large marble Venus was sold to Henry Huntington in 1927 as the work of the French 18th-century sculptor Falconet. It is in fact a 19th-century work by the Italian sculptor Mercanti, exhibited in Florence in 1861. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the high demand for 18th-century sculpture from collectors such as Henry Huntington often resulted in spurious re-attributions.