26: Aphrodite of Knidos

Keeping our promise from last episode, episode 26 explores the history, artistry, and mythology of the famous Hellenistic sculpture, the Aphrodite of Knidos by Praxiteles. Using the words of ancient authors like Hesiod, Pliny the Elder, and others, we examine multiple copies of the sculpture, including the Vatican’s Colonna Venus, the Uffizi’s Venus de' Medici, the Aphrodite Braschi of the Munich Glyptothek, and an example from the Art Institute of Chicago. We also expose the misnomer of the Roman “copy” of an original Greek sculpture. And we’ll round things out with some modern revisionist theories on the sexuality of Aphrodite.