Aphrodite Of Praxiteles
Roman copy of a marble original of about 340B.C. It was displayed in a temple at Cnidus in virtually peep-show conditions and widely held to be the greatest statue of antiquity. It is also one of the earliest female nudes in which the flesh-like qualities of marble must have been well exploited by the sculptor (earlier, major freestanding figures were usually of bronze). The type was endlessly copied, at various scales, in antiquity, and still is. No copy does more than hint at what must have been the quality of the original. (Boardman, 1986)