The
Callipygian Venus or
Venus Kallipygos, (
Aphrodite Kallipygos, "
AphroditeAphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty and raw sexuality. According to Greek poet Hesiod, she was born when Cronus cut off Ouranos's genitals and threw them into the sea, and from the aphros arose Aphrodite.Because of her beauty other gods feared that jealousy would interrupt the peace...
of the Beautiful Buttocks"), is a type of nude female statue of the Hellenistic era. In an example of
anasyrmaAnásyrma , also called anasyrmós, is the gesture of lifting up the skirt or kilt. It is used in connection with certain religious rituals, eroticism, and lewd jokes, see e.g. Baubo. The term is used in describing corresponding works of art...
, it depicts a partially-draped woman, raising her light
peplosA peplos is a body-length Greek garment worn by women in the years before 500 BC. The peplos is a tubular cloth, essentially, folded inside-out from the top about halfway down, so that what was the top of the tube is now at the waist and the bottom of the tube is about ankle-length. The garment is...
to uncover her hips and
buttocksThe buttocks are rounded portions of the anatomy located on the posterior of the pelvic region of apes and humans, including many other bipeds or quadrupeds.-Anatomy:...
, and looking back and down over her shoulder, perhaps to evaluate them.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, the statue was thought to illustrate a story from classical antiquity of two girls in Syracuse who were trying to decide which of them had the more shapely buttocks.
The
Callipygian Venus or
Venus Kallipygos, (
Aphrodite Kallipygos, "
AphroditeAphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty and raw sexuality. According to Greek poet Hesiod, she was born when Cronus cut off Ouranos's genitals and threw them into the sea, and from the aphros arose Aphrodite.Because of her beauty other gods feared that jealousy would interrupt the peace...
of the Beautiful Buttocks"), is a type of nude female statue of the Hellenistic era. In an example of
anasyrmaAnásyrma , also called anasyrmós, is the gesture of lifting up the skirt or kilt. It is used in connection with certain religious rituals, eroticism, and lewd jokes, see e.g. Baubo. The term is used in describing corresponding works of art...
, it depicts a partially-draped woman, raising her light
peplosA peplos is a body-length Greek garment worn by women in the years before 500 BC. The peplos is a tubular cloth, essentially, folded inside-out from the top about halfway down, so that what was the top of the tube is now at the waist and the bottom of the tube is about ankle-length. The garment is...
to uncover her hips and
buttocksThe buttocks are rounded portions of the anatomy located on the posterior of the pelvic region of apes and humans, including many other bipeds or quadrupeds.-Anatomy:...
, and looking back and down over her shoulder, perhaps to evaluate them.
Identification
In the 18th and 19th centuries, the statue was thought to illustrate a story from classical antiquity of two girls in Syracuse who were trying to decide which of them had the more shapely buttocks. The story is recorded in
AthenaeusAthenaeus , of Naucratis in Egypt, Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourished about the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century A.D. The Suda only tells us that he lived in the times of Marcus Athenaeus (Ancient Greek - Athếnaios Naukratios, Latin Athenaeus Naucratita), of Naucratis in...
'
Deipnosophists 12.554 c-e:
- "The people of those days were so attached to their sensual pleasures that they even went so far as to dedicate a temple to Aphrodite of the Beautiful Buttocks, for the following reason. Once upon a time a farmer had two beautiful daughters. One day these girls, getting into a dispute as to which one had a more beautiful backside, went out onto the public street. And by chance a young man was passing by, the son of a rich old man. They showed themselves to him, and when he saw them he voted in favor of the older girl. And in fact, falling in love with her, when he got back to town, he took to his bed and told his younger brother everything that had happened. And the younger brother also went to the country and saw the girls, and he fell in love with the other daughter. And so when the boys' father tried to get them to marry someone of the upper classes, he couldn't persuade his sons, and so he brought the girls in from the country, with their father's permission, and married them to his sons. And so these girls were called fair-buttocked by the citizens, as Cercidas
Cercidas was a poet, Cynic philosopher, and legislator for his native city Megalopolis.He was an admirer of Diogenes, whose death he recorded in some Meliambic lines. He is mentioned and cited by Athenaeus and Stobaeus...
of Megalopolis says in his Iambic Verses: "There was a pair of beautiful-buttocked girls in Syracuse." And so these girls, when they got wealthy and famous, founded a temple of Aphrodite and called the goddess the Fair-buttocked, as Archelaus of Chersonesus tells us in his Iambic Verses."
The fact that there was a religious cult of Aphrodite Kallipygos at Syracuse is also mentioned by the Christian author
Clement of AlexandriaTitus Flavius Clemens , known as Clement of Alexandria , was a Christian theologian and the head of the noted Catechetical School of Alexandria. Clement is best remembered as the teacher of Origen...
in a list of erotic manifestations of pagan religion. Clement cites the poet
NicanderNicander of Colophon , Greek poet, physician and grammarian, was born at Claros, near Colophon, where his family held the hereditary priesthood of Apollo. He flourished under Attalus III of Pergamum....
of Colophon, and generously quotes the alternative term (
kalligloutos, "with a beautiful bottom") that Nicander used.
Ancient examples
The best known example is a small Roman marble copy of a Hellenistic original. It was found at Rome. It was on show in the Palazzo Farnese and thus joined the
FarneseThe Farnese family was an influential family in Renaissance Italy. Its most important members included Pope Paul III and Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, and the titles of Duke of Parma and Piacenza and of Castro were held by various members of the family....
collection when that palace was acquired. With that collection it found its way to Naples in 1802. It was then considered dangerously erotic, on the level of pornography (the more so for being partially draped rather than entirely nude like the Venus de Medici) and was included amongst other such material in the Secret Cabinet.
In 1836, Famin called it a "charming statuette" but noted that it was:
- "...placed in a reserved hall, where the curious are only introduced under the surveillance of a guardian, though even this precaution has not prevented the rounded forms which won for the goddess the name of Callipyge, from being covered with a dark tint, which betrays the profane kisses that fanatic admirers have every day impressed there. We ourselves knew a young German tourist smitten with a mad passion for this voluptuous marble; and the commiseration his state of mind inspired set aside all idea of ridicule."
It is currently on display at the
Museo Archeologico NazionaleThe Naples National Archaeological Museum is a museum in Naples, southern Italy, at the northwest corner of the original Greek wall of the city of Neapolis. The museum contains a large collection of Roman artifacts from Pompeii, Stabiae and Herculaneum...
.
Modern copies
A marble copy by
Jean-Jacques ClérionJean-Jacques Clérion was a French sculptor, working mainly for Louis XIV. For much of his career he worked on the Chateau de Versailles, including many of the famous garden sculptures, such as the "Apollo Fountain". His admission piece to the Académie française, a 1689 bas relief of Saint James...
(1686) was sent to Versailles. Another copy was made by
François BaroisFrançois Barois was a French sculptor. Whilst resident at the French Academy in Rome he produced a copy of the Kallipygian Venus for Louis XIV, on which he worked from 1683 to 1686. His Cleopatra Dying was his reception piece for the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in 1700; it is now...
during his residence at the
French Academy in RomeThe French Academy in Rome is an Academy located in the Villa Medici, within the Villa Borghese, on the Pincio in Rome, Italy.-History:...
, 1683-86. It was sent to
VersaillesThe Palace of Versailles, or simply Versailles, is a royal château in Versailles, the Île-de-France region of France. In French, it is known as the Château de Versailles....
, then to
Marly-le-RoiMarly-le-Roi is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. It is located in the western suburbs of Paris . from the centre....
in 1695, where it was provided with additional marble draperies by Jean Thierry, not to offend an increasingly prudish public taste; it remained at Marly until the Revolution, when it found it way to the Jardin des Tuileries.
Augustus the Strong ordered a copy, which was executed by
Pierre de l’EstachePierre de l’Estache was a French sculptor. He produced a copy of the Kallipygian Venus in Rome in 1722-23, for Augustus the Strong's Grosser Garten in Dresden . He was president of the French Academy in Rome in 1737-1738...
in Rome between 1722-23, for the
Grosser Garten, Dresden. However it was destroyed in 1945 (Desmas 2002).
Modern appreciation
The 19th century identification was popularised by the 20th century lyrics of the Frenchman
Georges BrassensGeorges Brassens was a French singer-songwriter.Georges Brassens was born in Sète, a town in southern France near Montpellier. Now an iconic figure in France, he achieved fame through his simple, elegant songs and articulate, diverse lyrics; indeed, he is considered one of France's most...
, particularly an extract from
La Fontaine which paraphrases Athenaeus' account and ends: