CIRCA 1ST CENTURY B.C.-1ST CENTURY A.D.

Statues of the so-called Venus Pudica type were hugely popular from the Classical Greek period onwards, the type having ultimately derived from Praxiteles' Aphrodite of Knidos of the 4th century B.C. Shown standing and nude, either after a bath or after emerging from the sea, the goddess tries in vain to cover her breasts and/or genitals with her hands in an act of attempted modesty (I. Jenkins, Defining Beauty, the Body in Ancient Greek Art, London, 2015, p. 178). Her failure to protect her beautiful body from the gaze of the viewer forces the latter into the role of hubristic voyeur, who risks divine retribution by casting eyes on her heavenly form (ibid., p. 68). The dolphin, here utilised as the support for the free-standing sculpture, is one of the key attributes of Venus, as a reminder of her watery birth - the goddess emerged from the sea after the Titan Cronos castrated his father Uranus and threw his genitals into the waters.

The Venus de Medici, a lifesized Hellenistic marble of the Venus Pudica type with dolphin-support, is the most famous sculpture of this type, and is currently housed in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.