Large clay figure of Aphrodite Anadyomene type
€1,800
available
Object number
AR3209
| Object: |
Large figure of Aphrodite Anadyomene type
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| Material: |
Red clay with traces of white grounding.
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| Date: |
About 3rd century B.C. Hellenistic period. South Italian. |
| Description: |
Figure of a naked young girl, her himation draped around her hips and the left arm. She is standing on a high base, her left foot set on a stone. The goddess originally had both arms raised, holding and wringing her tresses. The left arm is leaning on a high column. The figure belongs to the famous Aphrodite or Venus Anadyomene type, showing the birth of the goddess rising up the sea. According to Hesiod's Theogony, the Titan Cronus killed his father Uranus and cast his testicles into the sea. From the white foam which spread around them, Aphrodite was born, rising from the sea in the area of Paphos on Cyprus. Many ancient sources report the popularity of this scene in ancient art, among which was a (now lost) much admired depiction by the painter Apelles of Kos in the 4th century B.C. which was brought to Rome on the order of Augustus and described by the Roman author Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia. |
| Size: |
Height 276 mm, width 85 mm, depth 68 mm.
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| Condition: |
Restored from fragments. Right arm and left forearm broken and missing. Wear and chips throughout the body. With partially remaining original white grounding. Overall a very impressive, elegant figure.
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| References: |
M. L. Ferruzza, Ancient Terracottas from South Italy and Sicily in the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles 2016) p. 197 Nr. 56 (this figure bent to the front and without column). For a later Roman version of the same type with long tresses (however not in contrapposto), see Antiken aus Rheinischem Privatbesitz (Köln 1973) Nr. 286 |
| Provenance: |
Acquired 2021 from the German private collection Dr. Dietrich. Acquired by him in 1984 at „Antique Shop Evangelos Kapsoulakis und Dimitrios Polydorou“, Athens.
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| Authenticity: |
We unconditionally guarantee the authenticity of every artefact, all items are subject to our lifetime return policy on authenticity.
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