A sacrifice before the Callipygian Venus in a circular temple

The figure on the pedestal is a copy after the Callipygian Venus, an antique sculpture immensely popular in the 18th Century. A heavily restored copy of a Hellenistic original was recorded for the first time in the Palazzo Farnese in 1556. The sculpture was moved to the Farnesina and in 1792 it was taken to Naples along with the rest of the Farnese collections, and remain there to this day, F. Haskell and N. Penny, Taste and the Antique, New Haven, 1981, no. 83, fig. 168.