The Venus de Milo or Aphrodite of Melos is an ancient Greek marble sculpture that was created during the Hellenistic period. Its exact dating is uncertain, but the modern consensus places it in the 2nd century BC, perhaps between 160 and 110 BC. It was rediscovered in 1820 on the island of Milos, Greece, and has been displayed at the Louvre Museum since 1821. Since the statue's discovery, it had become one of the most famous works of ancient Greek sculpture in the world.
Praxiteles of Athens, the son of Cephisodotus the Elder, was the most renowned of the Attica sculptors of the 4th century BC. He was the first to sculpt the nude female form in a life-size statue. While no indubitably attributable sculpture by Praxiteles is extant, numerous copies of his works have survived; several authors, including Pliny the Elder, wrote of his works; and coins engraved with silhouettes of his various famous statuary types from the period still exist.
Agoracritus was a famous sculptor in ancient Greece.
A statue is a free-standing sculpture in which the realistic, full-length figures of persons or animals are carved or cast in a durable material such as wood, metal or stone. Typical statues are life-sized or close to life-size; a sculpture that represents persons or animals in full figure but that is small enough to lift and carry is a statuette or figurine, whilst one more than twice life-size is a colossal statue.
Marble has been the preferred material for stone monumental sculpture since ancient times, with several advantages over its more common geological "parent" limestone, in particular the ability to absorb light a small distance into the surface before refracting it in subsurface scattering. This gives an attractive soft appearance that is especially good for representing human skin, which can also be polished.
Paros is a Greek island in the central Aegean Sea. Part of the Cyclades island group, it lies to the west of Naxos, from which it is separated by a channel about 8 kilometres wide. It lies approximately 150 km south-east of Piraeus. The Municipality of Paros includes numerous uninhabited offshore islets totaling 196.308 square kilometres (75.795 sq mi) of land. Its nearest neighbor is the municipality of Antiparos, which lies to its southwest. In ancient Greece, the city-state of Paros was located on the island.
Scopas was an ancient Greek sculptor and architect, most famous for his statue of Meleager, the copper statue of Aphrodite, and the head of goddess Hygieia, daughter of Asclepius.
The Doryphoros of Polykleitos is one of the best known Greek sculptures of Classical antiquity, depicting a solidly built, muscular, standing warrior, originally bearing a spear balanced on his left shoulder. Rendered somewhat above life-size, the lost bronze original of the work would have been cast circa 440 BC, but it is today known only from later marble copies. The work nonetheless forms an important early example of both Classical Greek contrapposto and classical realism; as such, the iconic Doryphoros proved highly influential elsewhere in ancient art.
The sculpture of ancient Greece is the main surviving type of fine ancient Greek art as, with the exception of painted ancient Greek pottery, almost no ancient Greek painting survives. Modern scholarship identifies three major stages in monumental sculpture in bronze and stone: the Archaic, Classical (480–323) and Hellenistic. At all periods there were great numbers of Greek terracotta figurines and small sculptures in metal and other materials.
The Augustus of Prima Porta is a full-length portrait statue of Augustus Caesar, the first emperor of the Roman Empire.
The Villa of Livia is an ancient Roman villa at Prima Porta, 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) north of Rome, Italy, along the Via Flaminia. It may have been part of Livia Drusilla's dowry that she brought when she married Octavian, her second husband, in 39 BC. However, it may also have been a gift given to her by Octavian upon their betrothal. The ancient sources tell us that Livia returned to this villa following the marriage. It was her sumptuous country residence complementing her house on the Palatine Hill in Rome.
The Capitoline Venus is a type of statue of Venus, specifically one of several Venus Pudica types, of which several examples exist. The type ultimately derives from the Aphrodite of Cnidus. The Capitoline Venus and her variants are recognisable from the position of the arms—standing after a bath, Venus begins to cover her breasts with her right hand, and her groin with her left hand.
The Venus Genetrix is a sculptural type which shows the Roman goddess Venus in her aspect of Genetrix, as she was honoured by the Julio-Claudian dynasty of Rome, which claimed her as their ancestor. Contemporary references identify the sculptor as a Greek named Arcesilaus. The statue was set up in Julius Caesar's new forum, probably as the cult statue in the cella of his temple of Venus Genetrix. Through this historical chance, a Roman designation is applied to an iconological type of Aphrodite that originated among the Greeks.
Olivier Voutier was a French naval officer who discovered the statue of the Venus de Milo in 1820, and fought in the Greek War of Independence.
The Phrasikleia Kore is an Archaic Greek funerary statue by the artist Aristion of Paros, created between 550 and 540 BCE. It was found carefully buried in the ancient city of Myrrhinous in Attica and excavated in 1972. The exceptional preservation of the statue and the intact nature of the polychromy elements makes the Phrasikleia Kore one of the most important works of Archaic art.
The Asclepius of Milos or Asklepios of Melos is a marble head from what was once a colossal ancient Greek statue of Asclepius found on the island of Milos in Greece. It was acquired by the British Museum along with the rest of the Blacas collection in 1867.
The Poseidon of Melos is a statue of Poseidon in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens (NAMA), with an inventory number 235, which is dated to the last quarter of the second century BC, thus to the Hellenistic Period.
The Merenda Kouros is a Late Archaic Greek Kouros, created approximately 540-530 B.C., measuring 1.89 meters tall and made of Parian marble. As of the present day, it is exhibited in the Sculpture Collection of the National Archaeological Museum, Athens.
Aphrodite of Rhodes also known as the Crouching Venus of Rhodes is a marble sculpture of the Greek goddess Aphrodite housed in the Archaeological Museum of Rhodes in Rhodes, Greece. It depicts Aphrodite in the crouching Venus pose, where the goddess crouches her right knee close to the ground and turns her head to the right. It is considered to be one of the most important hallmarks of Rhodes today.
Armed Aphrodite is a first-century AD Roman marble sculpture depicting Aphrodite Areia, or the war-like aspect of the Greek goddess Aphrodite, who was more commonly worshipped as a goddess of beauty and love. It is modelled after a lost Greek original of the fourth century BC made by Polykleitos the Younger, and is now kept in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens in Greece with accession number 262.
