Aphrodite of Cnidus

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. The goddess is shown naked, a bold innovation at the time. From reproductions of this statue on Roman coins numerous…

The first full-scale female nude, it later became the model for such Hellenistic masterpieces as the Venus de Milo (2nd century bce). Sandro Botticelli’s Birth of Venus (c. 1485) is one of the most famous paintings in the world and depicts the goddess on the seashore, having…