Name:	Crouching Aphrodite
Picture:
Description:	Eighteenth century copy in marble after Roman copies of an original by Doidalsos. Examples can be found in Naples, Rome, and the Louvre, Paris. H. 1.06m. Aphrodite crouches, naked, in order to bathe. The left leg is raised, the right lowered to almost touch the ground. The right arm is lifted to untie her hair, and the left arm is folded across her body, resting on her left thigh. Her head is turned to the right, and she looks downwards.
Date:	c. 250 B.C.
Discussion:	Doidalsos of Bithynia was a follower of the Lysippic school, and his work Crouching Aphrodite shows the typical Lysippic twist and use of many dimensions. The attribution is based on the assumption that this is the same Aphrodite Bathing Herself mentioned by Pliny (NH 36.35). The ungainly pose and rolls of flesh look forwards to the later Hellenistic taste for realism. Stewart 1990: 214 notes that the head of Aphrodite is sculpturally akin to figures from the Great Altar of Pergamon, whilst the body is that of an Asiatic fertility goddess, rather than belonging to the Praxitelean canon. This is sometimes restored with a small Eros figure accompanying Aphrodite to the right, helping (or hindering) her as she ba