Torso of Venus. Rome, 1st-2nd century AD.Marble.Provenance: private collection, Paris, France.

Torso of Venus. Rome, 1st-2nd century AD.
Marble.
Provenance: private collection, Paris, France.
Measurements: 17 cm.
Marble sculpture representing a Puditian Venus fresh from the bath. After Praxiteles created and installed in Cnidus the first plastic representation of a large female nude, other sculptors also made this theme their own. The complete nudity of the torso is due to the lack of arms, which covered some parts of the body. The absence of the upper limbs gives the sculpture a different appearance to what it would have originally looked like. As a reference to this important iconography, there is a statue preserved in its entirety in the Medici villa in Rome, which shows that the goddess covered her pubis with her left hand, while her right arm was raised to partially cover her breasts. The head, turned sharply to her left shoulder, was relatively small and the neck was long. Her hair was tied back on top of her head and a bun on the nape of her neck.