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35 Napoleon’s Naked Sister Her feet sink into her cushioned couch more than do her lovely hips—the sculptor showing off, but not where it might suggest a weighty derrière. Canova knows what must yield and where. The pair of tasseled pillows she presses plump up like nothing so much as buttocks, more sensual than she, who is after all a goddess, not some naked celebrity, for all Rome’s vulgar gossip. Over her head, the Judgment of Paris provides a kind of pedigree. Canova caresses the stone, not the lady—and that was no lady, that was the emperor’s sister. Famous artist floats daring subject in marble light as air. You are to admire what he’s done (not serene, reclining she), even—genius that he is—her divine aristocratic hair, drilled so delicately. ...

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