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The female nude in Greek sculpture owes its evolution to the influential Greek sculptor Praxiteles, who in the fourth century B.C. produced his most famous work, the sensuous marble Aphrodite of Knidos. Hailed by Pliny the Elder as the greatest sculpture of all time, Praxiteles’ Aphrodite was among the first large-scale sculptures to depict the goddess—or any female—in the nude.

The drapery and stance of the present statue follows the tradition of an Aphrodite originally from the east pediment of the Parthenon, attributed to Phidias from the 430s B.C. According to Margarete Bieber (Ancient Copies, p. 94), Hans Scrader once noted of the type, "The dress is neither a second skin following the body, nor a thick draping which hides its form. Rather, it has its own life without disturbing the organic forms of the body. The folds play over the mighty forms of the goddess' body like clear water which ripples in small waves over the sand when the tide begins to rise."

Throughout the Hellenistic and Roman periods that followed, Aphrodite became widely explored by Greek and Roman sculptors in a variety of media, and to varying degrees of sensuality. Feast your eyes on these gracefully posed sculptures from the June Antiquities sale and discover the enduring appeal of the goddess of love…