A penchant for voyeurism flourished in the artistic climate of the Hellenistic period, and not surprisingly Aphrodite was front and center. (In mythological terms, the idea had been around for far longer: think Akteon and Artemis, Peleus and Thetis, Gyges and Nyssia, satyrs and maenads, etc.)
The real innovation in the 4th century B.C. was using life-sized sculpture as the object of stealthy mortal infatuation. Praxiteles was the first to use it with his scandalously nude Late Classical cult statue of Aphrodite, and the goddess of sensual love and beauty would seem to have been the ideal subject in the following centuries as well.
Shown here is a Roman version of the ‘crouching Aphrodite’ – a statue type popularized in the Hellenistic period and found in every format and scale imaginable across the Mediterranean, showing the goddess emerging from the bath, either fiddling with her hair or languidly covering her nudity. This particular one is now in Rome’s Palazzo Massimo and originally hails from Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli, where it would have been titillating garden decoration.
One of many she may be, but this is by far my favorite surviving version, with the pose allowing the sculptor to delight in the fleshy rolls on her abdomen, long legs, and feet that would make Quentin Tarantino swoon. Her head turns sharply as she senses an illicit gaze upon her, yet still serene. As is so often the case, the diagonal break across her forehead only enhances her beauty – we are left with none of the unbecoming fashion hairdos, weird noses, awkward arms, or dopey pupils that can distract in better preserved examples. She’s stripped down, gorgeous, and she knows it!
