APHRODITE
Aphroditē (Ἀφροδίτη) · Roman Venus
Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Aphrodite.
The Birth of Venus
Sandro Botticelli, c. 1484–1486
A celebrated Renaissance tempera painting showing the goddess of love arriving at the shore fully grown, borne on a scallop shell by the breath of the wind gods while a waiting Hora extends a flowered cloak. One of the most iconic images of Aphrodite ever made, it is housed in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence.
Venus de Milo
Alexandros of Antioch, c. 150–125 BC
A Hellenistic marble statue generally identified as Aphrodite, discovered on the island of Melos in 1820. Renowned for its serene beauty and famously missing arms, it has become one of the defining images of the goddess and of classical sculpture itself. It is displayed at the Louvre, Paris.
Venus of Urbino
Titian, 1534
An oil painting of Venus reclining nude on a couch in a Venetian palace interior, her gaze meeting the viewer's with calm directness. Titian brings the goddess of love out of myth and into an intimate domestic setting, in an image that shaped centuries of reclining nudes. It hangs in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence.
The Birth of Venus
Alexandre Cabanel, 1863
An academic oil painting of Venus newly born from the sea, reclining on the crest of a wave beneath a flight of putti. A sensation at the Paris Salon of 1863, where it was purchased by Napoleon III, it epitomizes the polished mythological nude of its era. It is now in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.