GRAECO ROMAN COPY OF THE VENUS DE MILO TYPE Ca. 25 BC - AD 25. A marble torso of Venus de Milo type. The chest is compact with round, high breasts and clear collarbones. The abdomen is finely modelled with a small navel and marked iliac creases, the waist turning slightly to the left. The back shows shallow shoulder blades, a long spinal groove, and rounded buttocks. The fullness of the form and bend of the body of our torso recalls in part the Aphrodite of Knidos, a late Classical (ca. 350 B.C.) creation of the master sculptor Praxiteles. C.M. Havelock, The Aphrodite of Knidos and her Successors (Ann Arbor 1995); M.D. Stansbury-O’Donnell, A History of Greek Art (London 2015) 166, 281, 298f, 331, Fig. 12. This now lost famous work of art, which was the first totally nude statue of a female, served to inspire a great number of later Graeco-Roman copies and variants, like our Aphrodite/Venus type. The best full-statue Graeco-Roman replica in marble of the lost Knidian masterpiece is in the Musei Vaticani. Helbig I4 (1963) 149-52, inv. 813 (H. von Steuben). Havelock (n. 1 above) 26f, fig. 1. In contrast to this Aphrodite type, the body of our torse twists more to her right side, and both shoulders are also positioned differently. In these important respects, our sculpture resembles most closely the semi-nude Venus de Milo in the Louvre (fig. 2a-c).[ Paris, Louvre Museum, inv. 399/400: The name of the sculptor of the Venus de Milo was inscribed on the base. See A. Pasquier, La Vénus de Milo et les Aphrodites du Louvre (Paris 1985); C.M. Havelock, The Aphrodite of Knidos and her Successors (Ann Arbor 1995) 125f, fig. 96; B.S. Ridgway, Hellenistic Sculpture II, The Styles of ca. 200-100 B.C. (Madison 2000) 169-71, ill. 21, pl. 58; R. Kousser, “Creating the Past: the Venus de Milo and the Hellenistic Reception of Classical Greece,” AJA 109 (2005) 227-50, figs. 1, 2 (hand holding apple), 4, 5, 12, 13. ] The nature and angle of the break just above our torso’s missing legs suggest that she, like the Venus de Milo, had a mantle draped around her lower body. For similar see: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Object Number: L.2023.5; Christie's, Online Auction 19058, Ancient Art from James and Marilynn Alsdorf Collection, Lot 40; See also https://www.museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani/en/collezioni/musei/museo-pio-clementino/gabinetto-delle-maschere.html .] Size: 800mm x 360mm; Weight: 60kg Provenance: Private UK collection; London art market; formerly in R.H. private collection, Switzerland, 1980s-2007. This piece comes with a report from Prof. John Pollini, Professor of Classical Art, Archaeology, History, and Classics and USC Associates Endowed Professor in Art History, Department of Art History, University of Southern California, Los Angeles. This item has been cleared against the Art Loss Register database and comes with a confirmation letter.