evoked the image of a portly Clara Venus ("famous Venus") with all-too-human blemishes (déficits) in a sardonic poem that introduced cellulite to high literature: La graisse sous la peau paraît en feuilles plates ("the fat under the skin appears in slabs"). The Birth of Venus, by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1879), reimagines the composition of the Raphael and Poussin tradition, reflecting the subject's continuing popularity among the academic painters of the late 19th century. It was shown at the Paris Salon of 1879, and was bought for the Musée du Luxembourg. Venus' nude figure takes up the center of the composition, with many admirers gathered around her. Pablo Picasso recast the image of Venus Anadyomene in the central figure of his seminal painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), a modernist deconstruction of the icon, and one of the foundational artworks of Cubism. Venus Anadyomene offered a natural subject for a fountain: the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., has a lifesize bronze plumbed so that water drips from Venus' hair, modelled by a close follower of Giambologna, late sixteenth century. The voyage of the sable Venus from Angola to the West Indies In 1793, Thomas Stothard created an etching inspired by Raphael or by Baroque compositions for the third edition of Bryan Edwards' The History, civil and Commercial of the British colonies in the West Indies. The voyage of the Sable Venus, from Angola to the West Indies depicts an African woman in the role of Venus. Attended by eight cherubs fanning her with feathers either of ostrich or of peacock, she holds the reins of a pair of dolphins who draw onward to the Americas the half-shell on which she stands. Cupid is displayed in the scene taking aim at a depiction of Neptune on the left waving a British flag. To the right is shown Triton looking back to the Sable Venus and embracing one of the dolphins. The figure is one of feminine strength: muscular, lean and adorned by a jewel necklace. Wave theory In 1913 the British archaeologist John Myres was on the coast near Paphos in winter. Watching the sea, he saw the wind blow two breakers together Gallery References Further reading Especially pp. 126–132. External links Venus Anadyomene, Roman villa of Petit-Corbin, Gironde (Musée du Louvre) Antonio Lombardo, Venus Anadyomene Venus Anadyomene, National Gallery of Art Arthur Rimbaud, "Vénus Anadyomène" T.R. Quigley, "Semiotics and Western Painting", 1994