Cleveland Museum of Art

Aphrodite Torso

Date

200–1 BCE

Medium

Thasian marble

Department

Greek and Roman Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

This torso can be identified through its nudity and pose as the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite. Based on the now-lost Aphrodite of Knidos, a revolutionary marble sculpture created by Praxiteles of Athens in the mid-300s BCE, this sculpture belongs to a popular Greek and Roman type showing the goddess at her bath. With hips slightly shifted, she stood in a relaxed posture with most of her weight on one leg, probably with one hand modestly covering her pubic region and the other shielding her breasts or holding drapery. Alternatively, one or both hands may have tended to her wet hair, some of which falls over her neck and upper back. This torso is based on the Aphrodite of Knidos, a Greek original by the master sculptor Praxiteles.

The authoritative record is held by Cleveland Museum of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.