Visual Legacy
Love, Beauty, Pleasure
Aphrodítē through the eyes of sculptors, painters, and craftsmen across three millennia
The Birth of Venus — Sandro Botticelli, c. 1485. The goddess emerges from the sea on a scallop shell.
Venus de Milo — Alexandros of Antioch, c. 130–100 BCE. The most famous Aphrodite in the world.
Capitoline Venus — Roman copy of a Hellenistic original. The goddess modestly covers herself, establishing the type for Western beauty.
Aphrodite of Knidos — Praxiteles, 4th century BCE. The first life-sized nude statue of a goddess in Greek art.
Venus Anadyomene — Titian, c. 1520. The goddess wrings sea foam from her hair.
The Judgement of Paris — Peter Paul Rubens, c. 1636. The moment Aphrodite won the golden apple and doomed Troy.
Venus and Mars — Sandro Botticelli, c. 1485. Love defeats war in this dreamlike allegory of desire and conflict.
Venus de' Medici — Roman copy. Once the most copied statue in Europe, defining feminine beauty for centuries.
Aphrodite Anadyomene — Marble statue, Louvre. The goddess wrings sea-foam from her hair in the type that celebrated her birth from the waves.
