CIRCA 1ST-2ND CENTURY A.D.

The most iconic image surviving from antiquity is a polished white marble portrayal of the voluptuous nude female form. Born from the sea foam, the Goddess of Love, Venus to the Romans, Aphrodite to the Greeks, was the embodiment of beauty, sexuality and fertility. The most celebrated statue of the goddess in ancient times was fashioned by the renowned sculptor Praxiteles for the goddess' temple at Knidos, circa 350 B.C. Thought to be the very first depiction of the goddess in full nudity, Praxiteles' original survives only in a multitude of Hellenistic and Roman interpretations. Over-lifesized and finely-sculpted, the present work is a notable Roman example that most closely resembles the Venus Medici, a Roman interpretation once in the Medici Collection and now in the Uffizi (see fig. 109 in Pasquier and Martinez, Praxitèle). The Venus Medici, like the present example, would have had a support beside her left leg, likely a dolphin, whereas Praxiteles' original would have had a hydria with her drapery strewn atop it beside her (see figs. 104-105 in Pasquier and Martinez, op. cit.). In turn, the Knidia would have borne her weight on her right leg (not the left, as here) and her right arm would have crossed her pudendum, rather than her left.
The present work was restored in the 18th century or earlier into a complete statue, the breaks having been smoothed to accommodate the later additions, now lost.