Ancient goddess of love, Venus appears before us, a beautiful bone statuette created by a skilled Roman artist. One of the twelve Olympians, Venus (known to the Greeks as Aphrodite) was one of the most celebrated deities of the ancients, known as the goddess of beauty, mother of love, queen of laughter, mistress of the graces and of pleasures, patroness of courtesans. In this gorgeous bone sculpture, her slender body conforms to the cylindrical nature of the material. She stands on a pedestal base with a mantle draped around her right knee, as if the artist was looking at larger marble examples where such a mantle would have functioned as a support of the tremendous weight of the stone. While there is no such worry when sculpting bone, the artist has retained this feature as an aesthetic device. As with similar bone sculptures, the now missing arms would have been attached to the mortises in the shoulders. Remarkably, traces of purple pigment survive on the diadem that crowns her head. This delicate sculpture captures all the grace and beauty of Venus. - (X.0025)

Antiquities
Ancient Roman