Object: Venus de' Medici
Venus de' Medici
Artist:
Fratelli Alinari (Alinari Brothers Photography Firm) (b. 1852)
Description:
Roman copy after Praxiteles: Medici Venus (ca. 350 BCE), Italy 1.53 m (5 ft 0 in) tall Hellenistic marble sculpture depicting the Greek goddess of love Aphrodite. It is a 1st-century BC marble copy, perhaps made in Athens, of a bronze original Greek sculpture, following the type of the Aphrodite of Knidos,[1] which would have been made by a sculptor in the immediate Praxitelean tradition, perhaps at the end of the century. It has become one of the navigation points by which the progress of the Western classical tradition is traced, the references to it outline the changes of taste and the process of classical scholarship.[2] It is housed in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy.
Credit:
Lafayette College Art Collection, Easton, PA; Gift of Bennett ('79) and Meg Goodman
Collection:
Dimensions:
25.4 W x 33.655 H (in cm.)