Aphrodite Rising from the Sea. Conceptualization: Greek, 3rd century BCE. Realization: Greek, c.2nd century BCE. Bronze encrusted from being underwater for a long time.

Aphrodite (Roman: Venus) lived at the very heart of Greek Mythology as the goddess of Beauty, Love, Sexuality, the Fertile Sea, and Vegetation. (“Where she walks flowers grow.”) Her best-known child was Eros (Roman: Cupid). One who is hit with Cupid’s “Arrow of Desire” is forced to follow that desire. Aphrodite was a late-comer to the Pantheon of Olympus, even though her myth gives her a genealogy older than that of Zeus. She probably is a transformation of the West Asian goddess Astarte,
who arrived in Greece, perhaps from Phoenicia, by way of Cyprus and Cytherea – the ancient centers of her cult.

The date of her arrival is still being studied, but it may have been about the time the Greeks were learning the alphabet from the Phoenicians in the 9th or 8th century BCE.

Legend has it she was born, fully grown, from the foam of the sea, foam created when the testicles of a deity fell from the sky. The Greek word for foam is "aphros." She then rode to shore on a sea shell.

This particular conceptualization pictures her wringing dry her hair just after emerging from the water. It is a particularly graceful image that has captured the imagination of artists and collectors for centuries.

The image seems to have originated with a statue carved in the 3rd century BCE for a temple on the island of Rhodes where a number of old replicas have been found. This design concept is one of the most enduring of classical configurations. It was copied many times by Roman artists. It also inspired many artists of the Italian Renaissance such as Botticelli and Titian, and then in the 19th century Ingres, Chassériau, and Bouguereau.

This particular version has been admired by leading authorities on Greek art, including Sir John Boardman in Oxford, Professor Andrew Stewart in Berkeley, as well as curators at the Getty Museum in Malibu, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. (FLG)