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The Bacchus stands on plinth on a street corner near the famous Ponte Vecchio bridge and is a modern replica of the 16th Century work by sculptor Giambologna.

For years, Alexander Rudigier, a London-based art dealer, has been on a quest to prove that a bronze figure of a bathing woman discovered 30 years ago in the house of a Paris scrap merchant is by the venerated Renaissance sculptor Giambologna.

Those against putting Giambologna’s name to the Venus note its lower arm angle, partly obscuring its face, atypical for the artist and suggesting it was an imperfect copy of the marble now at the Getty.

And they say the unfinished, rougher style, for example in the bronze woman’s hair, is not late Giambologna.

Mr. Rudigier counters that this simply demonstrates how Giambologna’s early style persisted into old age.