3-037-138 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Statuette of Venus, 1st century B.C. Additional Info: Venus, the goddess of love, crouches low as she washes herself. With her right knee on the ground and her left sharply flexed, she turns her upper body and appears to raise her right arm. The dynamic movement not only reveals the goddess’s voluptuous sensuality, but also encourages the viewer to rotate the figurine in order to appreciate it fully. Held in the hand, it would have taken on the appearance of human flesh. The statuette is a miniature variant of an original sculpture that is most commonly dated to the mid-to-late third century BC.