This graceful sculpture of Venus comes from a group of works created for the family palace of Johann Wenzel Count Gallas, built between 1714 and 1718 after a design by the imperial architect Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach. Apart from the sculptures of the Olympian gods on the attic of the palace and its lateral projections, this group also included the figures of the Atlantes and the reliefs of the Labours of Hercules in the portals, and vases, cartouches and the decoration of the main staircase. It was an extremely important commission for the Braun studio, and this is why even sculptures designed for considerable height of the palatial attic show a very sensitive treatment, mostly executed by the master himself. The sculptural decoration of the upper floors of the palace suffered an unhappy fate. The monumental scene in the gable of the central part vanished completely, as did the two female figures above the windows of the second storey of the lateral parts. By 1880, the sculptures of the Olympian gods were in such a bad condition that they had to be removed from the attic and their fragments were placed in the garden of the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague.
