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The Esquiline Venus

"The Esquiline Venus is an anomalous work, for while the body is modelled with a voluptuousness that almost oversteps the line dividing the nude from the naked, the head is treated with archaic severity."

Curator of Classical Antiquities, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Catalogue of Casts, Greek and Roman Sculpture (1891)

Discovered in the Horti Lamiani on the Esquiline Hill in December 1874, the Venus was found together with the sculptural group of Commodus as Hercules.

Edward John Poynter modeled his Diadumenč on the Venus.

 

A similar rendering is in the Louvre (Paris).


See also Commodus as Hercules and Venus Pudica; both the Esquiline Venus and Commodus are in the Palazzo dei Conservatori (Rome).


References: The Works of Philo Judaeus, the Contemporary of Josephus (1854-1855) translated by Charles Duke Yonge.

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