Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
Standing upright on straight legs and wearing only a diadem, perhaps with a topknot of hair arranged above it, this nude figure of Aphrodite (Venus) is represented as emerging from the sea just after her birth. She holds out thick tresses of hair from either side of her head as if removing the sea-foam. Her pose is based upon a version of a famous Hellenistic statue, which in turn may have been inspired by the image of an Aphrodite Anadyomene—emerging from the sea and wringing out her hair—painted by Apelles, a fourth century BCE Greek painter who may also be credited with creating the type (1). Two variants of the sculpture are known: nude and partially draped. Bronze statuettes of the Aphrodite Anadyomene type were popular in the Roman provinces and are also known from Turkey. While inspired by masterworks, this bronze example of Aphrodite is not of high aesthetic quality and was likely part of a mass-produced casting that made votives intended as dedications in sanctuaries of the goddess or as inexpensive figures for placement in a tomb or household shrine (2).
NOTES:
1. See R. Lullies, Die kauernde Aphrodite (Munich, 1954) 78; and M. Bieber, Ancient Copies: Contributions to the History of Greek and Roman Art (New York, 1977) figs. 225-26, for the tradition of this statuary type, which survives in a number of marbles and bronzes going back to the third century BCE. For the type, see Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae Aphrodite nos. 424-28, 430, and 446-47; for an overview of the Aphrodite Anadyomene type, see A. Delivorrias, “Das Motiv der Aphrodite Anadyomene,” LIMC 2.1: 54-57; and D. M. Brinkerhoff, Hellenistic Statues of Aphrodite: Studies in the History of their Stylistic Development (New York, 1978) 56-69.
2. For a group of these bronze statuettes, see P. G. Warden, The Hilprecht Collection of Greek, Italic, and Roman Bronzes in The University of Pennsylvania Museum (Philadelphia, 1997) 35-37, figs. 82-88.
Aaron J. Paul
