ClassificationsGreek and Roman Art

Statue of Venus Pudica

AAT Object Form/Functionstatues

CultureRoman

PeriodImperial

Datelate 1st-2nd Century CE

MediumMarble (Paros 1 and Paros 2 or Aphrodisias)

Credit LineCarlos Collection of Ancient Art

Dimensions54 1/4 x 19 x 11 in. (137.8 x 48.3 x 27.9 cm)

Object number2006.041.001A/B

Label TextVenus stands nude, shielding herself with her left hand. She wears a crescent-shaped diadem in her wavy hair, which is centrally-parted, pulled back over the ears and bound in a looped bun at the nape of the neck. The dolphin at her feet, ridden by her son, Cupid, supports the statue and alludes to the goddess' birth from the sea.

This so-called pudica pose is based on a celebrated though now-lost cult statue of Aphrodite made by the Greek sculptor, Praxiteles, in the 4th century BC that stood in the goddess’ temple on the island of Knidos. Praxiteles’s statue was the first life-size representation of a female nude in Western art, and quickly became the archetypal model for depictions of the goddess during the Late Classical and Hellenistic periods. Copies in different media and on various scales proliferated across the Roman world, too, where they were displayed in domestic as well as sacred contexts.

Exhibition HistoryMCCM Permanent Collection Reinstallation, February 2009 - August 26, 2013
MCCM Permanent Collection Reinstallation, September 25, 2013 - Present
Published ReferencesComte de Clarac, Musee de sculpture antique et moderne, tome IV (Paris, 1836-1837), plate 620, number 1380.
J.J. Bernoulli, Aphrodite: ein Baustein zur griechischen Kunstmythologie (Leipzig, 1873), 231, number 34.
Salomon Reinach, Repertoire de la sculpture grecque et romaine, vol. I (Paris, 1897), 332.
Bianca Maria Felletti Maj, "Afrodite pudica," Archeologia Classica 3 (1951): 64, number 59.
Sotheby's New York, Antiquities (December 11, 2002), 18, lot 12.
Sotheby's New York, Antiquities (June 6, 2006), 28-32, catalogue 23.
"Museum to Reunite Venus Statue with Head," Townhall (June 13, 2006).
Giovanna Dell'Orto, "Headless Venus to be Whole Again," The News & Observer, Sunday, June 18, 2006, 6G.
"Sotheby's Reunites Ancient Roman Aphrodite Figure with Her Head," Antiques and the Arts Online (June 20, 2006).
Lita Solis-Cohen, "Aphrodite Gets Her Head Back," Maine Antique Digest (July 2006).
MCCM Newsletter, September - November 2006.
Preston Lerner, "Delta Shocks Deity," Air & Space, Smithsonian, May 2007, 12-13.
MCCM Newsletter, March - May 2009.
Michael C. Carlos Museum: Highlights of the Collections (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 2011), 55.
Susan Jaques, A Love for the Beautiful: Discovering America's Hidden Art Museums (Guilford, CT: Globe Pequot Press, 2012), 43.

ProvenanceEx coll. Mr. Brunet, Paris, France, by 1836. Head: Ex coll. John Pennington Warter (1920-2002), New Jersey, acquired from John Klejman (1906-1995) [JJ Klejman Gallery], New York, New York, December 1964. Sotheby's New York, December 11, 2002, lot 12. Purchased by MCCM from private collection, Houston, Texas via Sotheby's New York. Body: Ex coll. Elizabeth Copley Thaw (1918-2012), New York, New York, acquired from gallery on Park Avenue, New York, New York, 1950s. Purchased by MCCM from Sotheby's New York, June 6, 2006, lot 23.

Status

On view

Collections