A free imitation of the Aphrodite of Knidos by Praxiteles.
The Aphrodite of Knidos established a new genre in Greek sculpture, the life-sized female nude. Back in Archaic and High Classical times the sculpted female form was always clothed; it was the male body which was naked. The breakthrough, made by the sculptor Praxiteles, changed the course of western art — think of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus (1482-6) or Picasso’s many female nudes.
The Capitoline Venus is one example of many variations on the prototype
Rome, Capitoline Museum, Gabinetto della Venere, 1
Transferred from the Fitzwilliam Museum in 1884
Lippold: Griechische Plastik, 291 (n.9). pl. 104.1
Brunn-Bruckmann, Denkmäler Griechischer und Römischer Skulptur, pl. 373
Walston: Catalogue of Casts in the Museum of Classical Archaeology (1889), 107, no.562
Reporter: 19 June 1885, 894, no.500
Found in Rome
