Lot Essay
This style of figure seems to have been adapted and closely influenced by the semi-draped "Arles" Aphrodite of the 4th Century B.C. sculptor Praxiteles, which was produced a few years earlier than his fully nude Aphrodite of Knidos. The drapery is similar to an Aphrodite found in the French town of Agen, cf. Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologicae Classicae, vol. II, 'Aphrodite', pl. 707. The depression on her left hip would suggest the presence of a strut to hold her left arm which would have come across her body at the front, her hand either touching or resting just above the knot of drapery - similar to that of the Townley or Aphrodite of Ostia now in the British Museum (BM 1574), f. LIMC, pl. 729.
