The collection of the Arzamas museum contains illustrative items, including paintings, engravings and busts, for the students of the first provincial school of painting. Alexander Stupin, the head teacher of the school, started to gather teaching materials during his stay in the then capital. He sent to Arzamas books, prints, drawings, sketches and antiques – busts and statues copied from classical originals, in particular Gladiator, Faunus and the sculptured group Laocoőn and His Sons. All the masterpieces were kept in two specially equipped halls of the school. When the school was closed in 1861, the sculptures were destroyed.

The sculpture Bust of Venus was often used for educational purposes in the A.V. Stupin school. In Roman mythology Venus was the goddess of beauty, desire, fertility and prosperity. The cult of Venus began in Ardea and Lavinium, areas in ancient Italy. The very first famous temple of Venus was built in 293 BC.

In 215 BC a temple of Venus was erected on the Capitoline to commemorate the Roman defeat in the Battle of Lake Trasimeno during the Second Punic War. Later on, Venus began to be identified with Aphrodite, a Greek goddess and the mother of Aeneas, who fled from besieged Troy to Italy. Legend has it that his descendants founded Rome; consequently, Venus was believed to be the foremother of the Roman nation. Her symbols were the dove and the hare. In Russia preference is given to the Greek name of the goddess of love, Aphrodite, which came to Russia from Byzantium, while the majority of artists, writers and critics from Western Europe use the variant ‘Venus’. Nowadays these two names are used as synonyms.