ART - Canova: Pauline Bonaparte, Venus Victorious - Borghese Museum - REAL PHOTO:  Pauline Bonaparte as Venus Victrix ("Venus Victorious") is a semi-nude and life-size reclining, neo-Classical portrait sculpture of Pauline Bonaparte by the Italian sculptor Antonio Canova, who revived ancient Roman artistic traditions of portraying mortal individuals in the guise of deities, a beautiful woman reclining on a couch, or reclining hermaphrodite. The sculpture was commissioned by her husband Camillo Borghese and executed in Rome from 1805 to 1808, after the subject's marriage into the Borghese family. It then was moved to Camillo's house in Turin, then to Genoa, only arriving in its present location at the Galleria Borghese in Rome around 1838.  Canova was first instructed to depict Pauline Bonaparte fully clothed as the chaste goddess Diana, hunter and virgin, but reportedly Pauline laughed and said that nobody would believe she was a virgin. She had an international reputation for promiscuity in France and in Italy, and may have enjoyed the provocation of posing naked in Catholic Rome. Further, when Pauline was asked whether she really posed naked in front of Canova, she replied that in fact she was naked, that it did not constitute a problem because Canova "was not a real man", and that the room was too warm to pose dressed. Portrayal as the deity may have been influenced by Borghese family claims of mythical ancestry: they traced their descent to Venus, through her son Aeneas, the founder of Rome.  This Real Photo postcard is in good condition.  P. E. Chauffourier. Rome.