Pliny recounts that Praxilites valued most the sculptures of his that were painted by the hand of the Athenian Nikias, although he does not specifically link Nikias to the Knidian Aphrodite. Such was her novelty that the city of Kos on Crete is supposed to have rejected her in favour of a clothed version. For the sake of shorthand, we will refer to “Aphrodite of Knidos,” as Figure 1 and “Venus de Milo,” as Figure 2. Every cast tells two stories.One ancient. The female nude appeared nearly three centuries after the earliest nude male counterparts in Greek sculpture, the kouros; the female kore figures were clothed. The statue became a tourist attraction in spite of being a cult image, and a patron of the Knidians. The Aphrodite of Knidos gathered a slavish following of admirers in antiquity. The Knidians in Asia Minor were more daring and installed her in a round temple (tholos), where she became something of a celebrity. The city of Kos purchased the draped statue, because they felt the nude version was indecent and reflected poorly on their city, while the city of Knidos purchased the nude statue. Aphrodite of Knidos is so named because it is a sculpture of Aphrodite that Praxiteles sold to the city of Knidos. Description: This is a cast of a standing, nude statue of Aphrodite. Unfortunately, the palace went up in flames. A lyric epigram of Antipater of Sidon[3] places a hypothetical question on the lips of the goddess herself: Paris, Adonis, and Anchises saw me naked, Those Aphrodite of Knidos. Pliny claims that it brought fame to Knidos and coins issued there depicting the statue seem to confirm this. Because the various copies show different body shapes, poses and accessories, the original can only be described in general terms; the body twisting in a contrapposto position, with the head probably turned to the left. A similar epigram is attributed to Plato: When Cypris saw Cypris at Cnidus, "Alas!" Khan Academy Article. [1] Overwhelming evidence from aggregations suggests that the Knidian sculpture was meant to evoke male responses of sexuality upon viewing the statue, which were said to have been encouraged by the temple staff. The Aphrodite of Knidos (or Cnidus) was a Ancient Greek sculpture of the goddess Aphrodite created by Praxiteles of Athens around the 4th century BCE. For a time in 1969, the archaeologist Iris Love thought she had found the only surviving fragments of the original statue, which are now in storage at the British Museum. Aphrodite of Knidos generalizes the values of womanly beauty in the ancient Greek traditions. Furtwängler: Catalogue of the Munich Museum, 266- Edmonds, J. M., trans. Aphrodite of Knidos The Aphrodite of Knidos is credited with being the first life-size female nude. These two marble sculptures are Praxiteles’, “Aphrodite of Knidos,” and Alexandros of Antioch-on-the-Meanders’ “Venus de Milo,” which is another depiction of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Nothing hides her beauty, which is entirely exposed, other than a furtive hand veiling her modesty. It is one of the first life-sized representations of the nude female form in Greek history, displaying an alternative idea to male heroic nudity. The goddess stands in the center; her statue made of marble from Paros. This sculpture is also said to be one of the first life-sized representations of the greek goddess in her nude form. An attendant priestess told visitors that upon being discovered, he was so ashamed that he hurled himself over a cliff near the edge of the temple. Her hands are pla… 4. By the fifth century CE the statue was said to be in the royal collection in Constantinople, along with the cult statue of Zeus from Olympia. Reporter: 19 June 1885, 893, no.300, Found near the ancient Roman harbour of Portus (modern Fiumicino), Use our search tools to search the Casts Archive. (Pseudo-Lucian, Erotes). Roman copy of a marble original of c. 350 BCE. His most-celebrated work was the Aphrodite of Cnidus, which the Roman author Pliny the Elder considered not only the finest statue by Praxiteles but the best in the whole world. Picard: Archéologie Grècque; Sculpture III (1948), 572, fig.236 The Aphrodite of Knidos was commissioned as the cult statue for the Temple of Aphrodite at Knidos. , height 4′ 11″ ( aphrodite of knidos meters ) Knidos is considered his greatest work, the... Following of admirers in antiquity the myrtle, beloved by the best surviving copy now the! Images of naked aphrodite of knidos than women, bending her left … Aphrodite of Knidos, made! Furtive hand veiling her modesty to Knidos to see it the Museums are the imitations derived from Aphrodite! 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