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Undergraduate
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| Name: |
Crouching
Aphrodite |
| Picture: |
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| Description: |
Eighteenth
century copy in marble after Roman copies of an original by Doidalsos.
Examples can be found in Naples, Rome, and the Louvre, Paris. H. 1.06m.
Aphrodite crouches, naked, in order to bathe. The left leg is raised,
the right lowered to almost touch the ground. The right arm is lifted
to untie her hair, and the left arm is folded across her body, resting
on her left thigh. Her head is turned to the right, and she looks
downwards. |
| Date: |
c. 250 B.C. |
| Discussion: |
Doidalsos
of Bithynia was a follower of the Lysippic school, and his work Crouching
Aphrodite shows the typical Lysippic twist and use of many dimensions.
The attribution is based on the assumption that this is the same Aphrodite
Bathing Herself mentioned by Pliny (NH 36.35). The ungainly pose and
rolls of flesh look forwards to the later Hellenistic taste for realism.
Stewart 1990: 214 notes that the head of Aphrodite is sculpturally
akin to figures from the Great Altar of Pergamon, whilst the body
is that of an Asiatic fertility goddess, rather than belonging to
the Praxitelean canon. This is sometimes restored with a small Eros
figure accompanying Aphrodite to the right, helping (or hindering)
her as she bathes. See Robertson 1981: 179, 202, fig. 282; Stewart
1990: 76, 214; 719-20 (ills.); Pollitt 1986: 56-7, fig. 50. |
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